Image
by el-Jimmeister
Summary: "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERF-ERS?" It was Duck Vox on a cotton candy-breathing rainbow dragon! He had just walked in on the Eternal Sphere's two sexiest goff guys doing it in the Duggus Forest against an old tree that is really a monster!
1. Chapter 1

Jimmy's Note: I don't own the copyright to any of the Star Ocean games. Specifically though, this story is gonna be set in _Till the End of Time_. I only own Ymmyj, Lemeena, Hector, and all their affiliates that do not actually show up in the games. The story will have themes of same sex relationships, so people who are uncomfortable with those ideas should look elsewhere. I am sure that there are many wonderful het fics out there for this fandom, and it is unnecessary to spread hate over personal preferences.

This fanfic is actually a re-exploration of an old story that I came up with back when I was 13, which is ten years ago as of this writing. (November 2015) Ymmyj is still a Gary Stu scoring a whopping _134_ points according to a litmus test I took of him after nerfing his many uber-awesome abilities I had endowed him with when I was a hormonal 13-year-old boy. At some point, I have decided to convert this entire story into an original fic, but I realized that I am just as bad as _Jim fucking Theis i_ n writing multi-fauceted original stories in the fantasy genre, so this story is back to being the SO3 fanfic it was once meant to be. And yep, Albel is one of the five video game guys I would go gay for. (The other four are Sephiroth, cross-dressed Cloud, Kuja, and Vincent Valentine.)

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

"Wake up, sweetie! You need to see this!" an attractive, dark-haired young woman shouted in fascination as she barged into the inn suite where she and her lover had been checked into. Her lover barely sat up and stretched his arms, letting out a loud yawn. He had no clothes on, only the sheets covering his nakedness.

"What is it?" Ymmyj Thyms, the young man on the bed, replied as he ruffled his medium-length, light brown hair and briefly looked out the window, finding hints of sunlight brightening the otherwise dull winter. "Damn, almost noon already?"

"A mysterious metal thing just crashed in the middle of the city!" she exclaimed, seemingly in disbelief.

"A what?" Ymmyj questioned lethargically as he tried to regain his focus and put his clothes back on his slender, lithe silhouette. He had slept in until late morning after a long day of delivering goods from the mining town of Kirlsa to the grocer across the inn. He had trekked through the snow-covered Traum Mountains east of Airyglyph, withstanding the harsh weather and hauling the town's meager supply of food for what would be about a week or so. Winters in Airyglyph tended to last for about four moons, and the kingdom's territory had inadequate expanses of viable farmland to grow food on, so his deliveries of the rations from Kirlsa were needed in order for the city's people to not starve to death. Later that same day, he had wound down in the tavern, had several glasses of various kinds of cider, and made off with this young woman who had been drinking her sorrows away after a rather long-winded conversation about her rather mundane life.

She pulled on his arms and dragged him out of the inn towards a part of the town close to the northeastern fortification wall. People crowded around the mysterious object that Ymmyj's lover had been referring to. It broke part of the city wall and the right side of the private home of one very unfortunate sap. The object was huge; almost the size of a house, and it could fit people inside.

"What could it be, anyway? Is it a star? It did fall from the sky, after all," the young woman questioned as Ymmyj quietly looked at every detail of the object.

"It's too large to be a star," Ymmyj replied, although he did know from his past astronomy lessons in runological school that stars were, in fact, larger than most towns, planets even, and that the sun they see during the day is a star. He was simply adjusting to his lover's lower educational attainment by pretending to be an everyman. "It's most likely a new weapon from Greeton, judging from the details on the object that seems to be a product of their more advanced technology. Or perhaps, a new runological weapon from Aquaria."

Glyphian soldiers had surrounded the object's perimeter to secure it, and just as Ymmyj and the young woman had made it to the front row of the crowd, he saw several soldiers push some people out of the way. They have restrained two strangely-dressed young men who seemed to have come from inside the mysterious object. One of the men had blue hair, pale skin, and a scrawny built. He was wearing a white, sleeveless shirt with a shoddily-drawn doodle on the back and shorts with the same color as that of parched earth. His companion was much-larger in built and clad in all black. He had blond hair, tan skin, and well-defined, huge muscles that bulged from his bare arms. For a guy of that size and musculature, he still couldn't do anything to break free from the powerful grip of the soldiers.

"Well. Judging by the way they dress, they seem to be engineers from Greeton-" Ymmyj conjectured.

"Greeton!? But what do they want from us!?" his lover interrupted him in shock. "Haven't they closed off their gates to all of us on the continent of Gaitt centuries ago? What can they take from us? This backwater kingdom? These infertile lands that are often affected by harsh snowstorms?"

"I have no idea myself," Ymmyj replied. "I don't know what the hell they could possibly want from this kingdom, or perhaps, even from Aquaria as well. Then again, the three military brigades: Dragon, Black, and Storm, might be able to handle them. Well, if those soldiers could actually restrain that blond beefcake, what more with their often-scrawny engineers who rely on their machines instead of on their own strength to fight?"

"Yeah, of course! Now that I think about it, maybe Albel the Wicked himself will paint battlefields red with Greetonite blood," the young woman replied too happily that it was almost scary in a sadistic way that is reminiscent of Albel's bloodthirst. Albel, after all, is a warrior renowned throughout the kingdom as the captain of the Black Brigade, and he has become a living legend. He was known to be ruthless, zipping through battlefields, leaving trails of blood in his wake and taking no prisoners. He was also said to be quite a desirable man, popular among the women, and some men who swing that way, of Airyglyph. In fact, some of the men who have enlisted to join the Black Brigade did so because they were infatuated with its captain despite the no-nonsense, unbelievably harsh way he handles his subordinates. Because of him, there were women who wanted to join as well, but Airyglyph's patriarchal traditions still held fast.

Ymmyj inadvertently shuddered at the thought of spilt Greetonite blood, especially in Albel's hands. Sure, Ymmyj may be an adept eskrima warrior and a Rank B bounty hunter working for the Affable Hector's Hunters' Clan headquartered in Kirlsa. After six years of experience in the field, the sight of blood is not new to him anymore. He also does delivery jobs and other errands on the side for more Fol, but at the end of the day, if he would be asked what his dream is, he would say that he's always aspired to become an engineer in Greeton. He would eventually find a way past the tightly-shut eastern gate in the Trading Town of Peterny and live his life out on the technologically-advanced continent.

"What's wrong, Hans? Are you okay?" the young woman noticed the grimace on his face. She had referred to him by the alias he had chosen to introduce himself to her as on the night before. Ymmyj was already feeling rather mentally fatigued from everything that had just happened, and his head started to ache.

"It's just that... I have to go. I... just remembered that I still have errands to do," Ymmyj replied and bade her farewell with a gentle kiss on her cheek. The young woman took off her corsage with a pressed flower as its main ornament.

"Take this," she said with a smile, handing over the accessory to Ymmyj. "It's a little something to remember me from. Thank you for last night. That was amazing. Maybe we could do that agin sometime? Y'know, I'm just usually at the tavern here in Airyglyph. If you wanna see me again, just drop by and have a drink or two."

"Of course," Ymmyj replied and took a closer look at the pressed flower. "This is beautiful." He then kept the corsage in his pocket and ran off to a secluded area and changed back to his real form to prevent his mental fatigue from worsening and revealing his true form where he would be seen.

Ymmyj is, in fact, a shapeshifter. His real form would be that of a short, young man who has long, black hair with a fluffy top layer of shorter fringes, brilliant brown eyes, fair skin, and rather effeminate facial features. Being partially a Menodix, a race of diminutive humanoids living in the Sanmite Republic to the west, he also has a tail. But other than his tail, his fluffy, thick hair that conceals slightly-misshapen ears, and his less-than-average stature of four feet ten inches, he looked mostly human. He would usually be seen wearing a dark blue woven winter hat, a black coat opened in front to bare his slightly-muscled chest, pauldrons that have slightly rusted on the edges, dark blue short shorts with an ornate, silver codpiece, black thigh-high socks covered in leg armor that still bared his thick upper thighs, and black leather battle boots with balsa wood formed into wedges four inches in height hidden inside to make him look taller than he actually is. His coat was trailed by two long coattails with tassels that looked similar to the way he bound his tail with a long, white ribbon, making it seem as though he had three coattails with the middle one sometimes inexplicably moving on its own.

He then began the long trek back to Kirlsa so that he could file a report to Hector that he had already delivered the rations of food to Airyglyph's grocer and tell him as well about the strange object that had crashed into Airyglyph's walls, along with the strangely-dressed young men that came with it. Other than seeing a strange object fall from the sky and crash into Airyglyph, this is what would constitute a typical day for Ymmyj ever since he had quit Aquaria's runological school six years ago. By day, he would either: perform various errands for money, hunt for meat in the two hills adjacent to Kirlsa, or try to slay the marks posted in the various taverns. By night, he would shape-shift into other forms and lengthen his list of 'conquests.' He would leave his 'conquest' the next day and repeat this cycle. Since the people were near-constantly in a state of war, the pleasure of bedroom intimacy was deemed as a luxury. Ymmyj had offered 'comfort' to the women who had lost their lovers in the war by taking on the forms and personalities of various desirable men. The young woman that he had kissed goodbye moments ago was just another one of them. For him, each woman (and the occasional effeminate man) he would take to bed is just another conquest, another notch on his bedpost, another log on his journal.

He had led such a carefree, debauched lifestyle amidst all the warring going on ever since that fateful day when he had decided for himself that it was not his calling to become the scholarly runologist that his caste-climbing adoptive parents wanted him to be. That had been six years ago, when he was fifteen years of age. Back in the Runological School, he was ostracized mostly for his small size compared to just about everyone else. It had been considered rather chimeric, after all, for Menodix like him to become one of Aquaria's esteemed runologists. He had been taught by the otherwise-childless merchants who had adopted and raised him as their own child to hide his tail, lest he be exposed. At first, he had been bullied only because of his short stature and scrawny built, but the bullying worsened after a wardrobe malfunction that had revealed his tail.

However, the straw that broke the lum's back for him was a certain girl who had completely pushed him over the edge. Lemeena. A tall, beautiful, and seductive young woman who could surely turn heads with her wavy, aubergine hair, smooth, sun-kissed skin, long legs, and voluptuous silhouette. She also had a sultry, velvety voice that reminds one of decadence and chocolates. She was about two years his senior, and his hormonal, teenaged self was hopelessly infatuated with her. As he would have already expected, though, she rejected his affections and cast him out, not being subtle at all about her aversion to him. This was the fatal wound to his self-esteem that had long been crippled by the way he believed that people in general perceived him as a subhuman. It also did not help one bit that his rival for her affections is Mackwell, the brilliant, handsome, dour alchemist with a high opinion of himself, and that he was going to be held back by a year for flunking his compounding and alchemy classes despite having aced his sacred geometry class. Truth be told, however, Lemeena pined over Mackwell to a near-obsessive level. What Ymmyj never knew was that Mackwell just wanted Lemeena to go away, and that he makes those explosive potions to scare her off.

He left Aquios on that fateful day without a word, without a note to anyone, not even his adoptive parents who were able to become rich enough to afford a home in the Sacred City about a year before he had set his heart on his new life. With only about five thousand Fol in his pocket and a pair of ordinary wooden sticks he used as improvised weapons, he started anew. He worked especially on his physical strength which he had so lacked back then, leaving him defenseless against bullies because of the anti-runology field applied in all areas of the school save for the training grounds. He also took this time to practice his shapeshifting runology, which was actually a forbidden art which he had surreptitiously studied in the deep archives of Castle Aquaria's library during off-hours.

He had already planned for quite some time that he would learn shapeshifting, change into the form of a man desirable beyond all conceivable imagination, and finally worm his way into Lemeena's heart and up her skirt. However, he would later change his game plan; he would seduce as many women (and some effeminate men) as he could just so that he can reassure himself time after time after time again that he is worth more than what Lemeena thinks of him. He simply wanted to get over his unhealthy obsession with her, even if it meant the usage of similarly unhealthy coping mechanisms. And when he would meet Lemeena again, he would finally give her the comeuppance that she deserves. He reinvented himself by growing his hair longer, wearing an outfit that is decidedly skimpier than the standard issue runologist robes, and, when he made his way to Kirlsa, joining the hunting guild, which he considered to be the place where he truly belonged, the place he called home.

* * *

Jimmy's Note: Nope, no slash here in this chapter yet. And to the less-informed about the world of fanfiction, the cracktastic summary is a shoutout to My Immortal, the infamous Harry Potter fanfic written in 2006, a little after the time this story would have been published had I pushed through with it. Had this story been published during the time I first came up with the idea, this story would be the My Immortal of the Star Ocean fandom.

Affable Hector is an anagram of 'Father of Cable', which is English for 'Ama ni Cable' if interpreted as a Filipino phrase. Ama ni Cable is in fact the alternate spelling of Amanikable, the hunting deity in ancient Filipino mythology.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Hey! Good to see you back, Semaj," Hector greeted heartily as the smaller, young man entered the hunting guild's headquarters, the modest-looking cottage next to the tavern. His cheerful, although thunderous, voice filled the room. Ymmyj had been using yet another false name all this time, introducing himself as Semaj Thornton when in his real, reinvented form. He knew better than to use his real name lest his caste-climbing adoptive parents find him, send him back to runological school, and cut his adventures short. "Why just now, though? I had been expecting that you would arrive around noon. That's when you usually get here to report back."

"Yesterday was a more tiring delivery job. The snowstorm was more intense than usual, and... Well, strange things happened back there, and..." Ymmyj replied as he sat down on the chair in front of the hardwood desk where Hector was sorting some paperwork.

"Oh, yeah, I think I have heard of the rumors," Hector interrupted. He then drank some cider straight from the green, glass bottle. "Well, it looks like I got a new mission for you, boy. It seems that the two strange men that came with the object that fell from the sky are engineers from Greeton. And of course, your mission is to go find out who they are and what their motivations are. Succeeding will instantly land you a rank promotion."

"Yes sir," Ymmyj affirmed. "That is, if they make it out of Castle Airyglyph's dungeon alive. I can only assume that they're getting unreasonably, painfully interrogated in that basement of nightmares."

"Personally, I do not side with either kingdom in this near-constant war. In fact, I hate war, and I just want the political bullshit going on to end already," Hector continued. "I think you should have already known this by now, but remember: the main concern of this hunting guild is to ensure the safety of people from the monsters that roam the lands outside of towns, whether Glyphian or Aquarian. We also help people find their missing relatives especially during aftermaths of battles and natural disasters. On the side, we also distribute food rations to Airyglyph to aid them during the winter months when all nearby lands are dormant, and deliver Glyphian fabrics and metals to Peterny. But if threats like this should ever come by, that concerns me. I mean, Greeton did close their doors to us centuries ago... What could they possibly want?"

"I guess that's for me to find out," Ymmyj replied. "That's the mission you gave me, after all. However, it may also be possible that the object may be a new runological weapon from Aquaria. Maybe Greeton and Aquaria have started to work together. Or perhaps they always have, and Greeton closed their doors to only us, keeping their collaboration under wraps. Sure, the Glyphians may have the best manpower, but all this manpower is still flesh and blood. Families still get broken, women separated from their lovers. Even our air forces are dragons: organic beings that, although powerful, do get hurt. We hurt when we fall down, sometimes rendered unable to fight even long after the physical wounds have been repaired. But a hunk of metal that serves as a weapon of immense power does not get hurt when it is destroyed nor does it emotionally break down. Thus, they are more easily replaceable. Besides, you are the one who may be forgetting that you headquartered this guild in Glyphian territory."

"...You really are tired, aren't you? You should get some rest," Hector dodged the conversation. "You have a long mission ahead of you. We may not be able to see each other in a while, or maybe forever, because of this. The possibility of death is part and parcel of your job as a member of this guild, which you, yourself, have decided to sign up for six years ago on your own volition. But even if that should be the case, I understand the utmost importance of this to the safety of the world itself."

"Yeah, but if it's really that important, why would you give this mission to a Rank-B hunter such as myself?" Ymmyj asked. "There's always Todd McMillan, the only triple S-rank bounty hunter in this guild. A living legend in his own right, almost likened to the Brigade Captains. Or the A-rank hunters, or any of the other B-rankers. Why me, anyway?"

"Quit comparing yourself to others, boy," Hector replied. "Life is a race, but you run it against your old self and all of its iterations. You always push yourself to become a better man. Todd had been a member of this guild ever since its inception twenty-five years ago. The first one, in fact. He's my best friend. Together, we worked to make this guild the way it is today. I used my management skills, and he used his strength. Triple S rank members such as him are often already middle-aged or older, not a fresh twenty-one years as yourself. The ranking system is not to show how much better of a hunter you are than those in the less advanced ranks, but to show how much you, yourself, have evolved as a member of this guild, and even as a person. I choose you for this mission because I trust you on this task. I have seen your exceptional work ethic that has been quite beneficial to the advancement of this guild."

"I see," Ymmyj said. "I will do my best. I will not let you down."

"You really must be tired," Hector said. "Your voice is starting to sound kinda droopy. Go get some rest. You are gonna need all this energy for the mission. There's steak and cream of squash soup in the kitchen, in case you're hungry."

"Thank you, sir," Ymmyj let out a yawn. He helped himself to the food he took from the large pots in the kitchen. One benefit to being in the hunter's guild was that he could always drop by anytime he wants to get free food that sometimes, he actually wonders if there's actually a shortage of food in Glyphian territory at all. Sometimes, however, the things they serve would be bland, or even awful. Although today was pretty good for his palate, there were some days when he had eaten tough steak, cheap sashimi, discordant dessert, or even spicy cake. Perhaps, shortages corresponded to those days when people with sweet teeth were desperate enough to substitute chili powder for chocolate powder to make cake.

He walked upstairs to the next floor towards his assigned quarters. He had recently earned his new ranking that allowed him to avail of the guild's lodging accommodations. But because he was still in the B-rank, he had to sleep with about seven other similarly-ranked, same-gendered guild members in one room. He would only be able to have a private room as soon as he ascends to the S-rank. The recent events have still fatigued him to the point that shapeshifting may prove to be unstable, and that there would be a high risk for him to get found out by the person who would have been his conquest for tonight if he would opt to stay in the opulently-decorated, compared to the rest of this austere town, tavern inn instead with yet another lover.

Besides, it would be strange to have an unknown, unbelievably beautiful woman (or man) in these shoddy lodgings. Being the affable man Hector actually was as the guild's name suggests, he took his time to get to personally know each and every one of the guild's members, so he had already memorized the faces of everyone who answered to him, down to the minute details such as the mole on the right side of Ymmyj's lower lip. This was a hunting guild after all, not a brothel, not a den of iniquity. Bringing harlots into the lodging accommodations was against the rules, and violation of this would result in instant expulsion from the guild with no chance of membership renewal. It was beneath Ymmyj anyway to have his fellow guildsmen be kicked out just to lessen his competition.

* * *

Ymmyj looked on in disgust at the room that seemed to be more like a lum stable that reeks of squalor. It was even messier than Elena Frahm's room. The room was hardly the luxurious bedroom he knew of when he was in Aquios with his adoptive parents, nor was it like the warm, cozy inn room back in Airyglyph that was conducive to lovemaking. The beds were simply wood planks joined together to form shoddily-crafted frameworks topped with hay and sackcloth for the sheets. They were stacked too close to each other for comfort even for someone as small as Ymmyj. Storage was sparse, so there was a lot of clutter in the room with belongings getting mixed up. By the only window in the room, there were various garments hanging on the curtain rod, ranging from cloaks, trousers, socks, and even underwear, still with some brown skid marks on some of them and rose-colored fleur-de-lis patterns on the others. The floor was made of wood planks supported only by square-sectioned wooden joists and beams made of stone rubble bound together by molasses. There were gaps between some of the boards, so it was possible to see into the headquarters reception area below, and if someone were to stay downstairs, every conversation that happens in these Rank-B rooms could clearly be heard. But still, this was rather similar to the setup of the village inn across, and the difference was that he gets to stay here for free.

He would be staying in this small room he would have to share with seven boisterous men, none of which were desirable enough for him to add on to his list of 'conquests' anyway. They talked of nothing that would pique Ymmyj's interest in any way. They talked of shallow gossip and of the body measurements of the female Aquarian warriors. Ymmyj went straight to his assigned bed, trying to look as inconspicuous as he could. He read a combat skill book which he bought from Airyglyph's bookstore. He did not take off any of his clothes, even his battle boots, feeling uncomfortable with exposing himself in front of these men even though they were all in various states of undress themselves. They must have already known each other for a long enough time to be comfortable with each other like that in a non-erotic manner.

"Clair? Probably a B-cup," one of his roommates, a burly man, said.

"And that Zelpher lady? Man, she sure has almost all of her covered up, save for her luscious upper thighs. But you know what they say, a gift is best given wrapped," another one, one with a tall, wiry built, replied. "And even better with a free trial."

"You think that maybe Duke Vox would have wanted this war to go on just so that these women have more reasons to enter our lands. And when they spring into action? Boom! You see wondrous things up those short skirts!" a third one, an average-built man with ruddy stubble, added.

"And Apris only knows where these women go to once they are cuffed and sent to the castle as prisoners of war," the wiry man replied.

"Yo. Girly boy. Got anything to say?" the burly man called for him. Ymmyj only gave him a blank, deathly stare. "Know anything about Tynave's tits, or lack thereof? Or the reason behind Farleen's shrill, squeaky voice?"

"Buffoon..." Ymmyj thought to himself, muttering the word under his breath. He himself may have a perverted streak, hypersexualized even more so than the average testosterone-addled man with his other hunting missions for 'conquests' and all that as his secret life nobody else knows of, but he would rather talk of more scholarly topics fit for an intellectual runologist, or about the intricacies of Greetonite machinery. Another one of the plethora of reasons why Ymmyj quit runological school was this; he was surrounded by imbeciles who talked of nothing but worthless gossip that he had nothing to contribute to. Gossip that only siphoned away at his energy, ever-so-slowly and agonizingly drawn-out. Clearly, he knew that the runological school was not the intellectual haven of esoteric philosophical discourse that many an everyman perceive it as. Somehow, he understood that this was one of the reasons why Mackwell also quit. After all, Mackwell, who was ever-so-precise about his time down to the last split-second, and apparently liked cats more than women, was the last guy anyone could think of to be a gossip-monger.

"You stare as though you are Albel calling someone a fool, a worm, or a maggot. Don't you know that that's rude!?" The big, burly man charged at him, but was stopped by two other men who held him back.

"Now the mannerless buffoon himself is talking about manners..." Ymmyj muttered under his breath.

"Hector will not like this," the wiry one said. "We are all supposed to be friends here, remember? If blackhair over there does not want to join us and chooses to mind his own business instead, then let him. He's probably one of those so-called introverts."

"At least this imbecile does have some to him..." Ymmyj thought to himself, and the men resumed their sexually-charged, obscene conversation as normal, not bothering to include the reclusive, raven-haired young man anymore. "I am never staying here again. This will be the first and last time. A few hundred Fol per night won't hurt that much, with conquest or without. Rather keep my sanity." He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself.

He could also hear high-pitched giggling from the room across, which was assigned to female rank-B guild members. He could even hear what they were talking about; they were speculating on what kind of undergarments Albel the Wicked wore, and in what color they came in.

"Black, most likely," one of the women said. "Black would complement his deliciously pale, long legs."

"Who knows? Maybe he actually wears them white as Glyphian snow," another, one with a high-pitched voice, replied. "With little marshmallow pink heart patterns on the scant fabric!" She followed her ludicrous guess with a soft, coquettish giggle.

"Red, like the color he paints battlefields with!" yet another woman exclaimed in a way similar to the gleefully sadistic way Ymmyj's lover from a while ago fantasized about spilt Greetonite blood in Albel's hands.

"Purple. It has to be. He seems to have a patent on that color," the one who seemed to be the voice of reason among the squealing fangirls theorized. "You do realize how many innocent ocean snails have to be boiled in a malodorous lead vat just for the deep, vibrant pigment they secrete? Of course, The Wicked One has a thing for that."

"The wickedly sexy one," the first woman replied with a voice that tried to be seductive but failed, completely disregarding the most likely plausible, horrific origins of Albel's attire that had also become a legend of its own amongst those of the female persuasion.

"Jeez. Is everyone here really an unabashed pervert? Oh, man... If only the Wicked One could actually hear whatever the fuck they are talking about... Or if the Crimson Blades were actually eavesdropping on my piggy roommates..." Ymmyj thought to himself with a slight snicker as he lost focus on the words he had been reading. "And a skirt with a high slit? And exposed thighs?" Ymmyj looked down on his own exposed thighs with a shrug. "But isn't he supposed to be a manly war general? An epitome of virility? Must be a mode of psychological warfare, then. Maybe he does that to stun-lock the female Aquarian warriors and crush them under his feet." Admittedly, Ymmyj did show a hint of interest at the women's conversation. He had never really seen Albel for himself in person, but from what he had heard, his skimpy outfit that flaunted a godlike body might be one of the reasons why he's popular with the ladies and the men who swing that way. Perhaps, Albel might wind up on his rather lengthy list of 'conquests.' "Psh, like that would ever happen," Ymmyj said silently to himself, brushing off a trace of a fleeting, yet disturbing, lustful reverie of sexually dominating the Black Brigade captain, or at least, how he visualized the katana-wielding, claw-armed warrior. Ymmyj tried to imagine a large, muscled man similar in built to that blond beefcake from a while ago wearing the outfit he had heard being described: a purple tank top with a bare midriff, a purple sarong with a slit on its left side that reached at least up to his hip, thigh-high stockings which were also purple...

"So, you swing that way?" The burly man interrupted Ymmyj's eavesdropping session through a tiny crevice in the thin wall, less than an average index finger thick, that divided the two dorm rooms. "You seem to be intently listening to the conversation in the ladies' room."

"Mind your own business, you fucking imbecile," the sable-eyed, diminutive young man said in between gritted, white teeth. He snapped and fired a small bolt of lightning aimed at the junction between his burly roommate's legs which was meant to only sting slightly, like an ant bite.

"Didn't I tell you not to talk to blackhair if he doesn't want to? He was just minding his own business," the wiry man questioned.

"But he's our roommate now. He has to learn the rules of being with us. And one of the rules is that nobody should be left out in our conversations," the burly man asserted even as he squirmed in pain at the flaming feeling in his trousers.

"Not anymore," Ymmyj said as he walked out of the filthy room. "Never again, you fucking buffoons." He slammed the door behind him.

"...and did I just feel what I feel down here? A burning sensation... Ugh. Dude most likely knows how to use runology!" the burly man groaned.

Semaj- that's blackhair's name by the way- probably was a failure back in that runology school in Aquaria. Just like me. But unlike me, however, he managed to make it past second year and earned his permanent runes. You know how tough it is there. Lots'a intellectual eggheads with stuffy vocabulary," the stubbled redhead conjectured. "As soon as my henna runes faded, I have also lost my ability to use even basic runology."

"Dammit..." The burly man continued to groan in pain.

* * *

The diminutively-statured young man descended down the creaking, wooden stairs flanked by a wall with a gallery of the portraits of every guild member on the right side (going down) and by wooden balusters on the other. He was greeted again by Hector, who was busy sorting out some more papers. "Burning the midnight oil, sir?" Ymmyj greeted in return and sat down on the chair in front of the hardwood desk.

"What's wrong, boy?" Hector asked in his usual, affable manner he was known for. "Your first time using the B-rank lodging accommodations? What do you think?"

"Ugh... For Apris's sake..." Ymmyj replied, his theoretical feathers obviously ruffled. "Do talk to the burly guy for me about manners. Dude just tried to pick a fight with me after refusing to join another one of their crude conversations about the ladies of the Crimson Blade."

"Yep, I did kinda hear what went on up there. I deliberately designed the headquarters to be that way, so that I can hear what goes on behind closed doors."

"Doesn't that distract you from your paperwork, sir? And what about privacy?"

"This is just paperwork. Keeping the amiable relationships between all the members of this guild is more important," Hector explained. "If it's in crude conversation about body measurements and undergarments that these strong, friendly relationships are built, then so be it. But I will talk to them about picking fights with you. And as for privacy, we may be many, but as a guild, we are one unit. One heart with many faces. With that, though, where are you gonna stay now?"

"I'll probably book a night at the tavern's inn after having myself a drink or two," Ymmyj replied. "A few hundred's more worth of Fol spent on a good night's rest won't hurt me at all. In fact, a good night's sleep will help me do my missions better."

"All right, if that's what suits you," Hector affirmed. "But do remember the important mission I have entrusted you with."

* * *

The two strangely dressed men from the crash-landed object had just escaped from the dungeon underneath Castle Airyglyph. Or rather, they were broken free by Nel Zelpher, the fiery-haired Crimson Blade who infiltrated the dungeon after learning of their crash-landing into Airyglyph as engineers from Greeton. They had went through the massive, frozen aqueducts that supply water to the city and hurried out to the Traum Mountains, where they were picked up by Tynave and Farleen, Nel's subordinates who had relayed to her the details about the strange event.

Nel had broken them out of the cell, although they were not really free in the absolute sense of the word. They had to comply with Nel's orders for them to share their expertise on technologically-advanced weapons to help Aquaria win the war, or she would have to kill them so that neither kingdom would benefit from their expertise. Even as they entered the wagon that the two young women used to get around, the soldiers from Airyglyph pursued them. Eventually, they had to be dropped off on a trail by the less-snowy part of the Traum Mountains that would lead to Kirlsa.

Tynave and Farleen then rode off in the opposite direction to try and distract the soldiers from pursuing the trio with heads of hair that came in the primary colors.

"Great. Just great," the blue-haired boy complained, which was unusual for someone as resolute as he was. "We're out of supplies, we haven't eaten anything much at all, and I could still feel those restraints-"

"Behind you!" the blond beefcake alarmed his smaller companion upon seeing three men clad in black armor catching up to them. The redhead had prepared her baselards for combat, and the two men also prepared for battle, the blond with his fists, and the bluenet with his sword. Unfortunately, since the two young men have been starved and have barely survived a fruitless, yet torturous, inquisition, the soldiers managed to incapacitate them with little to no effort at all. The redheaded female warrior had done her best to ward off the Glyphian soldiers as well, but she had made one wrong move and got stunned. But just when all hope for them to survive seemed to fall at the mercy of the Glyphian soldiers who had just outdone them, the short-statured, raven-haired bounty hunter got in the way and parried the sword aimed for the young woman's heart with his eskrima stick.

* * *

Jimmy's Notes:

Albel's undergarments are purple, and he wears a thong. What other kind of undergarment does not show up with a skirt/sarong with a really high slit? This is more obviously seen when he forges weapons, and can be slightly visible when he attempts to understand engineering. (I got this info from both TVTropes and actually playing the game.)

'Henna runes' in this story are the common attack and support symbols. In the educational system of runological school (in my headcanon; also has a few undertones of Harry Potter influence), these common symbols are learned (and mastered) during the first two years, and after which, the runes would be made permanent through a ritual equivalent to a final exam on earth, but practical in nature. This ritual is quite difficult, and only few pass. Those who fail would be kicked out of runology school and encouraged to 'seek for other pursuits to enrich their lives.' When their henna runes fade after a week since expulsion, they would completely lose the ability to use runology. Only permanent runes could be powered up by learning the stronger symbols such as Explosion and Meteor Swarm, mostly through self-study, either by intense training, profound research, or finding the rare books that teach these spells.

I based the last scene in this chapter off of something that happened in my game the first time I played it when I was in this area. I didn't prepare well enough and ran out of supplies. I also went the wrong way and ended up getting pwned by the soldiers by the bridge that leads back to Airyglyph.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Ymmyj had exerted much force to block the sword aimed for Nel's heart, enough for the redheaded double dagger-wielder to get back to her senses. Nel wondered who the strange, black-haired young man was, but she decided to save her curiosity for later. At least, it seemed to her, he was on their side. After all, he had just moved in the way of her untimely demise at the sword of a lowly Glyphian soldier. She fought the soldiers off as Ymmyj conjured blocks of ice springing from the ground to freeze on the three pairs of heavily-armored feet in order to stall their movement.

He took two leaves of fresh sage from his coat pocket to revive the two unconscious Greetonite engineers. He noticed that they have become frostbitten by the snow as well, but being the determined young men they were, they fought on and eventually managed to best the three soldiers who would have thrown them back into the dungeon otherwise, with the finishing blow coming from the blond's gauntlets that seemed to be robotic hands that enhanced one's strength.

"Moron. Know your enemy before you strike the first blow," the tall blond said as he triumphantly stepped on an unmoving soldier's incapacitated body and placed his hands on the sides of his waist. "That was a close one!" he continued, cupping his clenched fist with other hand in a gesture of narrow, but earned, victory. He then shifted his eyes from the transition between barren and snowy landscape towards the black-haired young man. "Say, who are you?"

"Thornton. Semaj Thornton," Ymmyj introduced himself to the gold-tressed, Greetonite engineer using his false name.

"Cliff Fittir," the blond said, firmly shaking Ymmyj's hand as an acknowledgement of him. Ymmyj slightly grimaced at the pain from the superhuman strength of the grip, but he felt the tall man's friendly, warm welcome.

"Fayt Leingod," the bluenet introduced himself.

"And you're Lady Nel Zelpher, are you not?" Ymmyj curtsied, offering his respects to the fiery-haired Crimson Blade. "Nice to meet you."

"Thanks for helping us out, Mister Thornton. I am also pleased to meet you," the redheaded warrior said gratefully, but still with the respectable firmness she was known for. There were some shades of doubt in her voice, still. "But what was that for? Who are you, anyway?"

"I am a B-rank bounty hunter of the Affable Hector's Hunters' Clan, with its headquarters in the next town which I suppose is your next stop," Ymmyj explained. "Sir Hector had given me a mission to take you guys to him so that he can find out what your motives are, falling from the sky no less. Don't worry, though. No need to fight him; he actually is as affable as the guild's name implies."

"You mean us? Well... Long story..." Cliff ruffled his head of blond hair.

"To cut the long story short, I broke them out from the Airyglyph dungeon. They each have their own missions for Greeton, but I have my own as well, for Aquaria. With that, they would have to comply with my orders or face death in my own hands," Nel said in her usual stoic tone.

"Sca-ry..." Cliff muttered under his breath.

"You know what? We can't just stand around here any longer. More of the soldiers would catch up with us," Fayt asserted. "Let's go."

"So, about your headache..." Cliff inquired about his blue-haired companion.

"Yeah, you would need to get some rest in the next town," Nel said.

"Jeez, guys. I'm not a baby anymore," Fayt replied resolutely despite his recurring headache that really did feel as though it seared through his skull. Although he was still the youngest among the now-quartet, he was already nineteen. Legal enough for spirits in Glyphian territory, in fact. The trio with heads of hair that came in the primary colors went ahead, with Ymmyj just being right behind them keeping always on the alert for any more soldiers who may be pursuing them. Ymmyj was still left wondering what the two men's respective missions to Greeton actually were. Perhaps, Lady Nel would explain everything to him once they get to Arias, the town after Kirlsa, where there were no monsters or Glyphian soldiers pursuing them. After all, Kirlsa was still Glyphian territory, and the group could get pursued anytime.

Ymmyj himself was neutral in the war; just like Hector, he sided with neither kingdom. He only cared about his missions for the hunting guild, and _those_ missions. However, his mere association with Nel after narrowly saving her life from a sword of a Glyphian soldier would render him an enemy to the kingdom. With that said, he surreptitiously examined Nel's supple, well-built silhouette, imagining how it would look underneath the flattering, black armor that flaunted her shapely upper thighs that had runic tattoos on them similar to the ones on his arms which he kept concealed at all times when in his real form with a long-sleeved coat despite the ridiculous skimpiness of his usual outfit otherwise. Ymmyj knew from that moment that aside from the mission that Hector had given to him, he would have another mission: to have Nel as a deeply-cut notch in his theoretical bedpost. If all those buffoons that resembled human beings known as his roommates would simply talk and blabber on pointlessly about her body measurements and the color of her undergarments, he was all about action. Besides, it just had to be him who would be entrusted by Hector for a mission to be with Fayt's party at least until Kirlsa, where he would have to bring the two young men to the hunting guild's headquarters.

Ymmyj had memorized this weather-beaten trail that wound ahead and down to the mining town; he had walked this dirt road one too many times, often with a cart filled with a week's supply of food for a town on his back. He already was deeply familiar with every bend, every gnarly curve of the long-dead tree at the junction that would lead to either the next town or to a dead end. Almost always, he worked alone. He never took his conquests to these dangerous places. But this time, he was to bring people back with him.

* * *

When the sun had set, he had entered through the thick, wooden door of the headquarters. The redheaded lady had went elsewhere for the moment to talk to someone, according to Fayt. When Ymmyj went in the modest structure, he was followed by the two strangely-dressed men whom Hector had wondered about.

"Semaj? Good to see you back right away. That was fast," Hector greeted cordially. "These the two men from the sky?" Hector stood up from his upholstered desk chair and led the three to the conference room behind his desk.

"Yeah... I even helped them stave off some Glyphian soldiers who were after them... Phew!"

"So, did you sleep well?" Hector asked his black-haired subordinate.

"Somehow... The tavern next door was much better than that... that squalid lum stable they call a dorm room. Sure, I can somehow, vaguely hear a woman's moans from the other room through the thick, wainscoted walls, along with a man's grunts, but at least I don't get to see their faces," Ymmyj replied. Because he had been so exhausted from the events of the previous day, he simply checked in to the tavern's more expensive inn and drifted off to sleep right away without having a conquest for himself that night.

Once the four men have entered the room, Hector had allowed everyone to take their respective seats.

"So, this is a hunting guild..." Cliff said as he looked around and saw, mounted on the walls, illustrations of various dangerous-looking monsters rendered in black ink against pristine, cream-white parchment. "Those must be artworks of monsters for a bestiary."

Ymmyj looked back at Cliff with a knowing, prideful smirk as the blond admired the artworks on the wall. "In fact, I drew some of those," the black-haired young man beamed with pride. "Three of them would be this one, this one, and that one." He pointed at his illustrations of the Ochu, the Brackish Muck, and the Gigas Worm, respectively.

"This kinda reminds me of a common sidequest in a lot of role-playing video games," Fayt remarked, although whatever it was that he meant was beyond Ymmyj's level of comprehension. "Maybe we should join this guild? Sounds like fun. What do you think, Cliff?"

"Says the square who wants to uphold the UP3 as much as possible," Cliff snarked. Ymmyj felt like he was missing out on something, but he guessed that the UP3 was probably a Greetonite law that prohibited them from interfering with the affairs of the less-developed outside world, especially with the help of their advanced technology.

"Of course. I would highly appreciate it if you do," Hector replied to the bluenet. "Just sign up here. You two seem to have your own share of fighting experience." The hunting clan's leader took two sheets of paper, two plumes, and a jar of black ink from a nearby credenza. He placed the writing materials on the conference table. The two men looked baffled when they looked at the application forms. The letters were Glyphian characters, and neither of them knew how to read and write in the region's language. After all, the communicator only worked as a translator, and writing the necessary information was another matter. Ymmyj offered to help them out, and they obliged.

"...so, what is this meeting gonna be about, sir? And do I actually get the promotion already?" Ymmyj mustered up the audacity to ask as he filled up the forms for his new-found friends. "Well, I did get to know their motives. They were with Lady Zelpher when I found them-"

"Lady Zelpher?" Hector interrupted. "So it does confirm your suspicions after all. That Aquaria and Greeton are working together!"

"I suppose... But the way she put it, it does seem pretty _coercive_ ," Ymmyj explained.

"Yep, she broke us free of that underground dungeon on the condition that we share our expertise with her for a runological wea..." Fayt added.

"Or else she would have to kill us. If you ask me... Sca-ry," Cliff cut off his blue-haired companion with a nudge of the elbow to his bicep and a nonverbal reprimand, most likely about revealing too much about Aquarian agenda in Glyphian territory. "...you know, if there's anything I have learned from this region, it's that the whips here hurt, too, and that restraints are also tight. Still, rather be with a scary but _hot_ chick than be in that hell hole with that creepy, repulsive inquisitor who enjoys his job way too much."

"Kind of like some creepy Grey dude from an awful early 21st century erotic novel," Fayt muttered under his breath. Besides, it was him who actually had more firsthand experience with the whip when the inquisitor had too much fun using the stingray's tail to leave long, red marks on his lithe, slender-muscular body.

Again, neither Ymmyj nor Hector knew whatever it was Fayt was talking about, but Cliff understood right away. Ymmyj simply hypothesized that it probably was a Greetonite thing, although he did take a hint of interest at the awful book Fayt just made mention of. After all, erotica in general was right up his alley. Ymmyj simply nodded in agreement that Nel was, indeed, a hot chick. Fayt also agreed, although he also mentioned that Nel could do without the 'chick' label, as she herself had said earlier when she broke them out.

The raven-haired bounty hunter knew that he, Fayt, and Cliff would get along on the onset during their adventures in the foreseeable future, but the three of them would have to be rivals as well, most likely caught in a love dodecahedron for even a single night in bed with the redheaded lady. After all, she was pretty well-known throughout the world not only as a force to be reckoned with, but also as a statuesque, stunning beauty to admire.

"Boys will be boys, will they not?" Hector muttered under his breath to himself with a sigh as he looked at the newly-filled-up registration forms, although he himself was also of the male persuasion. He then faced the three men after he stamped the dry seal the approval on the pieces of parchment, thereby making Cliff and Fayt official members of the hunting clan from that day onward. "Before you even think about bedding her, though, do realize that she tends to swing the other way," Hector broke apart their small bout of combined infatuation for the flame-haired beauty. "You know, she does seem to have her heart set on Lady Clair Lasbard."

"Well... So much for that," Ymmyj sighed in disappointment that Nel would not be another notch in his bedpost. He could also see the apparent disappointment in the faces of his companions. Besides, even though Ymmyj was a risk-taker who had already slept with several people of noble social status, he understood that attempting to disguise himself as Clair, the high-ranking woman who is pretty much the other half of Nel's soul, would prove to be too risky. One wrong move, one small, subtle deviation from Clair's usual behavior, and his stint as a shapeshifting Casanova would be over, probably with a baselard through his throat. "So, what do?"

"Don't think that getting that instant promotion is gonna be easy, boy," Hector said. "You have technically not cleared your mission yet because from the information you have given, things are still pretty ambiguous. From this point on, you are gonna have to be in their traveling party. You will have to really get to know these two strangely-dressed men and what their real motives are for ending up in Airyglyph, falling from the sky no less."

"So that means..." Ymmyj was about to voice his thoughts about eventually fulfilling his dream to become an engineer in Greeton when he was interrupted by the sight of a shiny, metallic, cylindrical object in front of him that occasionally beeped a red light. His companions also looked at the contraption out of curiosity, also wondering how in the world such an advanced piece of technology could end up in a declining, backwater town such as Kirlsa.

"That's a compact communicator," Hector informed him. "Because you probably are not gonna be back here for a while, you are gonna need that to keep in touch with me. Usually, only A rank members and up would be able to use these things, but because of the urgency of this mission, I guess I will have to make an exception for you. Besides, at the rate you are going, you are gonna be headed for the A rank soon enough anyway."

"But how did you- you aren't from Greeton, are you? This technology is too advanced for this backwater continent," Ymmyj asked in suspicion, raising an eyebrow.

"You know, Welch of the Inventor's Guild in Peterny and I are pretty good friends," Hector replied. "She gave me several of those things. I dunno where exactly those thingamajigs come from, but they do actually work. Y'know, you should drop by sometime. Maybe these two can also join her guild. She has this policy of never turning anyone down, so..."

* * *

That night, the party has decided to stay in the Iron Maiden Inn, the cheaper inn just in front of the hunting guild's headquarters. They would have stayed in the more lavish tavern's inn where Ymmyj had stayed the night before, but because they were with Nel, it would be a rather shady place to take a woman to no matter how much of a proficient fighter she is, when accompanied by three young, testosterone-addled men, no less. Well, maybe being with two men in a lavish tavern inn is shady enough, and having to book a separate room for the lady would be more expensive. Besides, it was Glyphian territory there, and Glyphian soldiers actually get discounts for availing of the tavern's services, whereas the captains of the three brigades could have everything for free. Also, they have already run out of Fol on their pockets from buying better weapons and replenishing their supply of food and medicines for the long journey that lay ahead of them.

The inn was rather shoddy, looking rather similar to the squalid dorm room that Ymmyj had promised himself to never stay in again. However, the conditions were rather preferable over having to stay with those seven buffoons. For one, there were no messes on the floor save for a few straws of hay gone astray, and there were no undergarments still with skid stains being dried out by the only small window in the room. Even though there was a lack of privacy because they were mere bedspacers for one night, that was okay with him. For the first time in what was, perhaps, three years, he did not have any conquests for two consecutive nights.

He lay down on the bed he got, the one close to a window. The faint moonlight shone inside, allowing him to do some private reading. He was not too sleepy yet to drift off to the land of dreams, but he was also too tired to get up. He noticed that his three companions were already fast asleep, and that there was a fellow traveler who wasn't in their party on one of the beds. He looked at Nel's slumbering body, her form pristine and at peace. He admired her, but he had standards he lived by. He would never do such an unthinkable thing to someone who was asleep or unconscious.

From his satchel, he took his journal. The cover was made of stretched wolf hide from his first hunt. He had enchanted it with a lock mechanism and an encryption system that would make the contents incomprehensible to anyone else. The thick notebook had been with him for six years, ever since he had set out into the greater world and embarked on various adventures. It had survived the harsh elements and many past battles. When he ran out of pages, he would simply buy more and add them to the bundle of papers held by fine, intricately-stitched string. Through the years, the hide-covered journal had been his only true companion. It had witnessed his joys, his tears. It knew that deep down, Ymmyj did miss his adoptive parents. He wondered from time to time how they were doing back in Aquios. It also knew of his one desire, to be truly loved while in his actual form.

Of course, it also had an exhaustive record of all his conquests. He would draw a portrait of them from memory, indicate some tidbits of information about them, and write a short descriptive about his experiences with them. Sometimes, he would even receive tokens from his many conquests such as the undergarments they have worn that night, some trinkets, and flowers. The trinkets, he used as ornaments for the journal's locking mechanism. He would glue a swatch of the underwear's fabric on the respective page of the lover who had given it to him as a souvenir. He would do the same with the flowers, after he would press them flat. With that, he took the pressed flower corsage he had received from his most recent conquest and glued it on a new page. He had written about his lover for that memento, that on the day after they had done the deed in Airyglyph's inn, he had seen a strange metal object fall from the sky, with two even stranger men inside. And now, as fate would have it, he was already with the two aforementioned men as a traveling companion, along with Lady Zelpher, no less.

* * *

 _Jimmy's Notes:_

Yep, the first same-sex pairing is here. In this story, Nel/Clair is canon, much to the frustration of a rather disgruntled Adray Lasbard who's trying to marry off his daughter to just about any young man he crosses paths with.

The names of the illustrated monsters in the gallery were actually taken from Final Fantasy 1, Origins version, with the exception of Brackish Muck, which is from Valkyrie Profile. Fayt lampshades the fact that random monster hunting for a certain reward is a common sidequest in video games, but instead, he would actually be the one doing the monster hunting himself and not from the comforts of the battle simulator. Make of that what you will with the infamous plot twist of the game this fanfic is based off of.

In the actual game, the area in front of the inn is an ordinary private home with two floors. The more expensive tavern inn cannot actually be stayed in by the playable party. As much of a metalhead as I am, the inn's actual name in-game _is_ Iron Maiden.

Bedspacer is a term, generally used in the Philippines, for someone who rents merely the space for a bed instead of the entire room. As it is, the room is shared with several people, usually around three to seven others. Based on the setup of Kirlsa's inn which does not actually have any separate rooms, it seems that people book beds there instead of rooms.

As a gameplay element, had there actually been a hunting sidequest similar to AHHC, Hector's compact communicator would work the same way as Welch's. It will show up as an option in the camp menu, and you can track your ranks and hunt missions from there. Battle trophies (a real feature already in the game) could also be viewed from there.

* * *

 _Review replies_

First off, I would like to thank you three for the reviews you have left on this story thus far. I highly appreciate them.

Justa Question - yep. It's part of the joke. Had I not been locked out of my Monica Gilbey-Bieber account, that would add another layer to the gag by making readers expect to read a My Immortal-esque trollfic/story written by a yaoi fangirl who also happens to like Justin Bieber.

Renegade the Unicorn - This madness? The musings of my 13-year-old mind, as narrated from the omniscient spirit of the 23-year-old me. This was once written as a first person perspective story, but I decided that if I retained that, the story would have too much wangst in it. I prefer to somehow have the neutrality that an omniscient narrator has. Just to give you a gist of the Star Ocean franchise, it is a series of RPGs set in the distant future. The main characters are often from high-tech planets, but they spend most of their time stuck on underdeveloped planets. Fayt, the protagonist in the third installment of the game where/when the story is set, and Cliff, the blond beefcake, are actually from other more advanced worlds than Elicoor II, the one where Ymmyj and Nel live, and because of the level of technology in Elicoor II equal to 17th century Europe, they know nothing about extraterrrestrial life and dismiss the possibility as the insane musings of a senile, old man.

guest - Yep. They are all bishie badasses, aren't they? I was actually going for that. I wanted to tell the story from the perspective of a23-year-old me as a spirit of sorts, watching over Ymmyj and his thoughts. Kind of like an astral projection of my grown-up self from that of my 13-year-old's musings and self-loathing. Y'know, I was thinking, at first, of pairing Ymmyj off with Mirage Koas because of the wordplay potential in their names, but I then decided to pair him off with Albel because of plot-related reasons. Also, Albel is way hotter... well. I just realized that had I really written and published this shit back when I was 13, this story would be the _My Inner Life_ of the Star Ocean fandom rather than be the _My Immortal_ of it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

An ominous chant repeated itself, over and over again in his head, in a deep voice. He had dreamed this dream, recurring, but only occasionally. The surreal visions in this dream still haunted him though, left him baffled as to its meaning. Ymmyj found himself in some strange place that seemed as though it was an illustration from his sacred geometry textbook come to life. Underneath him was what seemed to be a circular, glass floor with ornate metallic beams that were not connected to any columns at all, but rather, formed a pattern of interconnected triangles and circles that seemed to implode within, in colors that he had never thought to exist. Somehow, blue and yellow have combined to form a shade that was not green at all, but rather, showed the characteristics of blue and yellow as they were. A color that he would forget about as soon as he wakes back up. Underneath the complex geometrical patterns of golden beams was an empty void that seemed to stretch on to no end. It was as though he was standing on a lone platform that floated in the middle of nowhere. Floating, crystalline tetrahedrons also surrounded the disc-like, otherworldly 'island.'

Right in front of him, an ethereal figure levitated, its feet several inches off the floor. The figure appeared male, with golden hair, fair skin, and clothes white as snow, with golden, geometrical detail adorning the hems. The repetitive, ominous chants were first recited by this celestial figure. Then, he found himself surrounded by winged beings that resembled angels that started reciting the same chant in unison in a crescendo.

He was seemingly pushed forward to another platform, and he felt the forceful movement through the void. He felt his body go through the crystalline tetrahedrons that appeared to turn immaterial when his body that seemed to move at the speed of light passed through them in a fleeting moment that timekeepers could not measure. As he had dreamed before, he was at the edge of the teetering platform, and from there, he could see three vague human figures standing in the center. However, there was something different about this reiteration of a recurring dream.

The tallest figure among the three approached him and brandished his sword. In defense, he whipped out his eskrima sticks, preparing himself to battle the mysterious figure that bore an uncanny resemblance to Fayt, his new traveling companion. The only differences were that the mysterious young man had brown hair, and he wore mostly black in contrast to the real Fayt's blue hair and white zipper-vest that replaced his other white vest that had a doodle on its back.

Suddenly, he found himself back in Kirlsa's Iron Maiden Inn, panting for breath as he sat up from his bed with a searing headache akin to his mental fatigue from being in another form for too long. What was that all about, anyway? But truth be told, Ymmyj didn't care. He didn't really buy into the malarkey that is sleep-dream interpretation. He didn't believe in sleep-dreams, nor did he believe in gods and angels. He cared more about what was real, about what he could feel and make decisions about that would really affect his waking life.

He only thought of sleep-dreams as an unreal, alternate world of sorts, a way for the mind to busy itself even when the body stops. It would play out meaningless, absurd thoughts running on autopilot even in more fucked-up ways than one. He had questioned the devout, unwavering faith in Apris he had been raised to have when he found that his prayers fell on deaf, nonexistent ears. Prayers, specifically, of a glimmer of hope that he would eventually be truly handsome enough to be perceived as desirable by one Lemeena Ingrefald. He had realized that whatever it was that he wanted, he would work as hard as he could to earn it without believing in an imaginary skydaddy or asking for help from a nonexistent deity. And six years onward, here he was, adventuring with two men who would someday help him live out his real, waking dream to become a great Greetonite engineer. With that, Ymmyj packed up his things and braced himself for the journey that lay ahead of him, perhaps a trek through the dangerous territory that is disputed between Airyglyph and Aquaria. He ensured that the party had enough supplies of blueberries, blackberries, and other medicinal plants to help them survive the next journey.

* * *

"So, it does seem as though you are gonna be traveling with us from now on, Mister Thornton," Nel said as soon as Ymmyj had informed her of what had transpired during the meeting with Hector over free breakfast at the hunting guild's headquarters, which Ymmyj had recommended because he had heard they were serving gratin, his favorite food. Nel had been doing her best to ignore the stares of Ymmyj's perverted guild-mates who were still debating on the color of her underwear, even though it was obviously black. "Besides, having another person with fighting experience could help us survive the long trek that lies ahead." Almost none of the guild members aside from Ymmyj seemed to understand what Nel was talking about, either because Nel was speaking in the Aquarian language when majority of the guild members were Glyphian everymen who failed the initiation rite to be in the three brigades, or because they were too busy speculating what Nel has underneath her short skirt with a slit as high as that one in Albel's sarong. If anyone actually understood her, they most likely didn't give a shit for the same aforementioned reason.

"A long trek? But isn't Arias just across the Kirlsa-Aire Hills to the east?" Ymmyj questioned.

"In case you might have forgotten, the gates have been sealed shut," Nel replied. "From reports I have gathered, the fields adjacent to this town are currently being used as encampments for Glyphian soldiers from all three brigades who seem to be pushing forward to Arias. It may be too risky for just the four of us to go those routes. It is especially dangerous to go through the Kirlsa-Aire Hills for the aforementioned reason."

"But can't we just go that way, use runology to destroy the gates, and kick the asses of those soldiers now that there's four of us? There's Fayt with his savvy, there's me with my eskrima sticks, six years of experience in adventure, and knowledge of runology as well, then there's a Crimson Blade such as yourself, and there's Cliff with his superhuman strength. I think that would be a better idea if we are going to try to stop them from completely capturing the village of Arias," Ymmyj suggested.

"Semaj..." Nel sighed. "You still have a lot to learn about _real_ warfare. You only know about bounty hunting and petty fights with thieves and monsters. Those guys are _soldiers_. They are an entirely different story from the marks you are used to hunting down. You still have to learn about something called _risk assessment_. Thus, the only possible way out would be through the abandoned mine to the north and through the Bequerel Mountain Path."

"I have been to the mountain path several times before," Ymmyj could only say in reply, even though he still disagreed with Nel. "I haven't been to the mines though, but I heard there's a lot of giant bugs and creepy crawlies in there, which all make my skin crawl. And rumors as well of a strange rock-monster."

"Well, it seems we are gonna confirm or disprove those rumors ourselves," Cliff asserted, doing his signature gesture of cupping his fist in conviction.

"I did check the bulletin board on the hunting guild's reception area before we left," Fayt mentioned to the tall blond. "It does make mention of a golem roaming in the mines which prevented the townspeople from using them any longer. And anyone who dared to enter the caves was never seen again... Still. Nel's right. It would most likely be safer to pass there if we are not to be caught by Glyphian soldiers and get thrown back to that horrible dungeon..."

"Oh, and one more thing you should know, Semaj: whatever goes on during important meetings concerning the creation of the runological weapon, you are not to disclose to Hector. I understand that it is your mission to find out what the two engineers from Greeton are up to for the sake of the people," Nel continued, thinking that none of the guild members could understand her. "But I still have my doubts. For all I know, he could actually be a spy for Airyglyph. Surely, he may say he is neutral in the war, but his true intentions could possibly say otherwise. Besides, he headquartered this guild in Glyphian territory. From now on, because you are now with me, you are also to comply with my orders, or it's a baselard through your throat as well. After all, merely associating with me has made you into an enemy of Airyglyph, proven by the fact that you have made that ridiculous suggestion to try to kick Glyphian soldier ass, and more probably, fail horribly."

"So, do I just make stuff up when he tries to contact me through the compact communicator?" Ymmyj questioned. "As far as he is concerned, though, Hector just put up the guild to ensure the safety of the people. We, as a hunting guild, take no sides in this war. In fact, it was us to helped deliver some trade goods to Peterny. We also helped deliver arms to Arias."

"I can teach you a thing or two about that," Cliff said smugly. "One basic rule of making up a false backstory is to stay as true to the source material as possible, and just adding a few embellishments here and there, or editing out some information to suit the time and place where the story is being told."

"Guys? I think we should get going already," Fayt interrupted when he had noticed that their plates and glasses have all emptied. "If Lady Zelpher here had mentioned something about Glyphian soldiers pushing for Arias, we'd best make it there before too much damage is done." And as soon as Fayt finished his sentence, he noticed Cliff with yet another big slice of meat that seemed to have come from nowhere on his plate. Fayt simply shook his head at his golden-haired companion, muttering, "You have got to be kidding me," under his breath.

* * *

The four of them had set out to the mines. True enough, it had been disused for a long time; the rails have rusted away, and some of the wooden rail guides have decomposed. Bugs also bred and thrived between the crevices, making Ymmyj uneasy throughout the time in the mines. Although Ymmyj had camped out often and had been through many adventures, he still couldn't stand being near most insects, especially cockroaches. Thankfully, or perhaps not, giant spiders also crawled out and about, preying on the bugs that Ymmyj so despised. But these same giant spiders were also hostile to humans, so they had to fight them off as well. Some of the goo from the spider's remains even got to the raven-haired bounty hunter's raven-colored clothes, much to his dismay, which had been somehow eased by the fact that his companions also had goo on their clothes. Ymmyj could not really complain at all anymore and mutter under his breath about his discomfort. He was used to working alone in his missions, but going on a more important mission with equally important companions was a different matter altogether.

There were also various other passageways in the cavern, but they were mostly blocked by huge rocks that could not be destroyed even by Greetonite weapons. It was a rather short walk; although they had first met a dead end, or rather, a locked door, in the end of the hallway in the western junction of the dank cave, they decided to try the eastern junction after exploring the smaller rooms and finding unopened crates still with unused supplies such as preserved blackberries and some old armor that some rust around the edges. They took these supplies anyway, since no one else would even bother with them. Fayt had noticed a series of buttons just next to the pit, and he tried to press them. Cliff tried to lend his companion a hand, and more likely, show him how it's done. Ymmyj also approached the buttons and tried to press them, promptly freaking out as soon as he saw a big cockroach crawl on his sleeve. He even tried to use runology to get the buttons to work, but to no avail. All that lightning spell did was to zap the poor roach as it fell to the ground, landing on its broken wings.

"Those are probably stuck. We should get going to the next room, perhaps. There must be another way around here to get them unstuck," Nel said, shaking her head at the testosterone-loaded contest of strength among her three male companions.

After going around through the upper rails surrounding a pit with the lower rails that led to the deeper recesses of the cave, they had reached another room with another lever on a wooden ledge. But just as Fayt was about to get to the lever, a huge golem suddenly jumped in front of him, from the ceiling of the cave where it seemed to be impossible for the monster to come from.

"So, the rumors are true," Cliff said, cupping his fist into his other hand as he prepared for battle. "And it jumped from the ceiling? But how the hell...?"

"The monster actually was from the ceiling despite its massive weight, and because of the monster's stony composition, it probably stayed there, watching for people who dared to enter its shelter. The ceiling is often good camouflage," Ymmyj explained. "And if it can stay on the ceiling despite its weight, it's most likely quite powerful."

"We have no time for this! We have to fight that thing!" Nel exclaimed as she took out her double daggers.

"Yep!" Fayt affirmed.

The rock monster pounded a fist into the ground, ready to smash the four humans who have dared to enter its abode. The four of them have managed to get out of the way of the impact itself, but Cliff had buckled under his own massive weight from the after-shockwave. The three smaller fighters stood their ground, their backs on each other. Nel had lunged forward, flinging daggers of ice from her fingers. The monster grunted in pain as parts of it had chipped off. Ymmyj had moved a little bit further to the side to cast a healing rune on Cliff, although Cliff himself had gotten back up and unleashed his fists of fury on the golem.

Fayt flew foot-first to the enemy and slashed away with his sword. The monster had been too distracted by the three in front of it that it aimed all its attacks forward. Ymmyj charged from behind and performed a combo of runology-imbued redondas on its back until he found himself panting for breath. They watched as the monster crumbled to a pile of dust, its life-source perishing in what seemed to be a flurry of bright light. A legion of angry souls screamed in anguish, in chaotic unison. The screams eventually faded, transitioning to a hum of harmonious peace as many orbs of light floated away to the great beyond.

"The golem is most likely a materialization of the anguished souls that have slaved away at these mines long ago," Nel explained. "We have finally allowed their souls to rest in peace." She picked up some of the dust off the ground and felt its texture, which has become no different from ordinary dust. She blew the dust away to join with the stuffy air in the mines. Ymmyj and Cliff did not believe in gods, but what they have just witnessed was proof that indeed, human beings had souls that go to the Great Beyond once they have rested in peace, and these souls manifested themselves in runological forces that give sentience and consciousness to the physical body that sensed its surroundings.

Fayt pulled the lever on the ledge, and from a distance, an unlocking mechanism could be heard. Ymmyj whipped out the compact communicator that Hector had issued to him, telling his boss, father-figure, and mentor about the rumors and legends of the cave-golem being true, and that he and his companions have slain it.

"Congratulations, m'boy. Looks like your companions have cleared their first mission. I'll keep that logged in my record book. To claim the reward for slaying the golem, just drop by here at any time you wish," Hector said in his usual hearty, cheerful tone. "At this rate, let me tell you: the two new guys have potential for great things. I can just sense it!"

"The door. It's stuck," Fayt was at the door where they had went through, and he was attempting to open it so that they could return to the previous lever room, but to no avail. Cliff charged towards the door, but even with his superhuman strength, it didn't budge.

"There's another door," Ymmyj said as he effortlessly pushed the other door which led to the passage they had gone through a while ago. He noticed that the crates with supplies have been opened, and that the entire hallway looked familiar. Ymmyj leaned against the door to keep it open, feeling a sort of pressure against him as the door seemed to insist on closing all by itself. The door had closed behind them as Ymmyj had released his hold on it when his three companions went past.

"Seems we have to go back around," Cliff stated. "The lever probably unlocks those buttons. But what's with these mechanisms, anyway? Jeez..."

"The Glyphians have installed traps in these mines to prevent slaves and prisoners sentenced to hard labor from making an escape," Nel explained. "It seems that that room with the golem is an assembly area for all the slaves and prisoners working in the mines to be corralled to before the day begins."

"Slavery... How backward," Cliff muttered under his breath.

"That's _pretty much_ why the Fed had classified this place as an _underdeveloped_..." Cliff nudged Fayt with his elbow, knowing that the bluenet would reveal their true origins.

"... _region_ ," Fayt continued matter-of-factly. "Haven't you been listening to your history lessons back in _Greeton Community High School_?"

* * *

When they had reached the room before the area where they slew the golem, Fayt noticed that there were Glyphian letters on a copper plate attached to the machine with five buttons on it. Ymmyj looked at the characters more closely as he wiped the dust of of the long-abandoned piece of machinery.

"Well, looks like we need to ride a hauler beast to get to the Bequerel Mountain Path," Ymmyj said. "I remember that when I had a mission to hunt for wolf pelts in the mountains, I got lost and ended up in the entrance to this mine. As of the time I went there, it's being guarded by a Glyphian soldier stationed there. He's too old to fight heated battles, but he's there to make sure that no Aquarian spies use the mines to access Kirlsa and that no one goes to that area on foot. Needless to say, he didn't let me through the mines. 'Sides, he told me there's way too many bugs in here for my own comfort."

"Better be careful then," Cliff said, protectively draping his arm over Nel in a gesture of flirting.

"I can handle myself, y'know," Nel replied, swatting Cliff's arm away from her shoulders in one swift motion. "How the hell did you think I would manage to get through Castle Airyglyph's dungeon _by myself_ to break _you and Fayt_ out?"

"Let's go," Ymmyj gestured as a green hauler beast emerged from its cage underneath the floor level where the four of them were standing. "We should go slow, though. Seems as though this guy hasn't been fed in a while and may get stressed easily. Pretty amazing how it survived for that long without healthy greens to sustain itself. It probably fed on the insects that roam these mines. Poor guy..." Ymmyj gave the beast some herbs to munch on and he petted its head. He mounted a saddle on the beast, and he and his companions rode on its back.

* * *

 _Jimmy's Note:_  
A redonda is a type of combo attack in arnis/kali/eskrima, characterized by sweeping, swinging motions of the bastons.

* * *

 _Review Replies:_

Renegade the Unicorn - Thanks, man.

Whip It - That inquisitor was goddamned nasty, and I think that Christian Grey is pretty much the guy that that inquisitor wants to be. I'm kinda getting the feeling that even _Duke Vox_ himself might be a perv, too. I'm actually planning to write a short fanfic which attempts to explain why Albel wears that ridiculously skimpy outfit, and it involves both Duke Vox and the Inquisitor. I have seen a similar fanfic on here, but it's too fluffy and soft for Albel. And yeah, I do understand the feeling of missing out on stuff and therefore, being unable to understand many inside jokes I am not part of. I simply drew from those experiences that I have. To be honest, I have a tendency to write based on what I know.


	5. Chapter 5

Jimmy's Note: So, after finding the script for the game along with a timeline of all the events in the entire Star Ocean series, I've been doing a full-scale rewrite of this fic again to make sure that things are in line with canon and that everyone is in character. Also, I did not copy the script exactly as it is, lest the story come across as a Stations of the Canon type of fic, and that would be boring as hell. Might as well play the game instead. I would also be adapting some scenes that were in the manga but were not in the game after skimming through several pages of it. I recently found my old drafts of this story, and needless to say, I cringed and headdesked at my over-a-decade-old writing.

* * *

 **Chapter 5**

"We made it..." Fayt said in relief as soon as he had seen signs of sunlight peering through the cave's entrance. Ymmyj, Nel, and Cliff followed suit, dismounting from the hauler beast. True enough, a Glyphian soldier rather advanced in age was stationed there, but he was asleep. He was even snoring loudly. When he had heard some rumbling from a hauler beast, he was jolted awake.

"Wha- what's going on!?" the soldier stood up from his station and brandished his sword. "Oh, it's just you, Semaj. One of those guys in Hector's hunting guild." He sighed and put the mythril sword back into its sheath.

"Gregory," Ymmyj greeted him. "Gregory Von Dermein III. Nice to see you again."

"You know this guy?" Fayt asked him. "...Don't you think he might pursue us?"

"Yep, I know him," Ymmyj replied. "He's a member of the Airyglyphian army, the guy who works as administer of these caverns. I have camped out somewhere in this area when one of my missions took more than a day to clear. He actually provides cheap accommodations for hikers and this small place to stay. Only thing is, we need to provide our own sleeping bags or tents and stuff while he guards over the camp."

"Well, I'm only a rank and file soldier. This is a job suited to an old man such as me. Not that I like being old, mind you... Man, this is the most boring job ever. But in my advanced age, this is all I can do other than retirement, which is an even more boring option," he complained. "So, you managed to use a hauler beast to get out of here? I didn't know they left the poor beasts in here to starve. And that would also mean that the tunnels have cleared."

"Yep," Ymmyj replied. "It was a rather rocky ride, though. I thought we were gonna be trapped in the mines. Poor guy almost collapsed from stress." Ymmyj handed over some herbs to the soldier. "These might help. I fed the hauler beast with these herbs before we made it here."

"There were a few dangerous parts, but nothing that prevented us from making it through," Fayt added.

"That's amazing! There are monsters prowling about, and the whole place has fallen into disrepair. There's also been some terrible rock slides and holes have opened up in some of the tunnels. It's a complete mess in there," Gregory explained. "Y'know, I have been a hauler beast driver for decades. That used to be my job until this mine got abandoned. Well, looks like I'll be driving this one back."

"Thank you; that would be great," Fayt replied.

"If you'd like, I can get you back to the other side of the cave in a jiffy."

"Not now," Ymmyj replied. "We have to go somewhere else."

"Of course. But if you ever need a ride, just ask," Gregory said.

"Thanks," Ymmyj replied.

"Let's move," Fayt said. "Before that soldier notices that..."

Cliff and Nel have already gone ahead, far enough that Ymmyj and Fayt could barely see them through the jagged horizon of the Bequerel Mountain Path. Ymmyj and Fayt hurriedly followed the two, eventually making it to the riverside village of Arias after encountering some wolves that were mere pushovers to them, especially to Ymmyj who already had years of experience traversing the mountain path.

* * *

"We made it," Nel greeted Ymmyj and Fayt as they walked through the northwestern gate. "This is Arias, Aquarian territory."

The village was a dreary sight to behold; there were sullen expressions on the pallid, morose faces of the villagers. Some were pacing about, wondering how to rebuild their lives. Others were looking into the distance, too traumatized to even do something about their own problems. Rubbles of stone and destroyed wood planks were scattered about.

"Some of the houses have been destroyed," Fayt observed.

"Yes, that happened during the Airyglyph attack," Nel explained.

"Wow. They did a lot of damage," Cliff said.

"...are we too late?" Ymmyj asked bleakly when he had also noticed the extent of the damage.

"The large mansion in the center of the town is our base of operations. We'll check in there first," Nel explained.

* * *

"You're looking well," Nel greeted Clair.

"It's you!" Clair replied. "When did you return?"

"Just now, Clair."

"So that's Clair Lasbard," Cliff thought to himself. "Nel's lover. Yep, looks like I'm not gonna stand a chance if Nel is seeing such a fine lady. They seem to have known each other for years."

Ymmyj examined the silver-haired lady. He had already seen her before and even knew about her as one of the high-ranking students back in runology school, being around three years his senior. But he didn't know that she and Nel saw each other that way.

"Welcome home. Are you hurt?" Clair asked.

"I'm fine. I see you still worry too much."

"It's only because you're too reckless," Clair said. "If you don't want me to worry about you, try being a little more careful."

"That's the line of work I'm in. It can't be helped," Nel replied.

"And she actually called me out on risk assessment," Ymmyj thought to himself. "I knew it would have been faster to go through the Kirlsa-Aire Hills."

"But still... Are these the ones?" Clair asked.

"That's right. They're engineers from Greeton," Nel explained. "They're still reluctant to help us, though."

Clair noticed Fayt, Cliff, and Ymmyj. "Mister... Thornton, is it? You're with them, too?"

"Yes, ma'am," Ymmyj affirmed.

"I see. Hector must have entrusted you with a mission to accompany the two Greetonite engineers."

"Hey, kid. So you also know her?" Cliff asked curiously.

"I guess it's one of the perks of being a member of Hector's guild," Ymmyj replied. "I've been on missions to help deliver some tools to this town and drive away some monsters. She's given me some briefings before. Y'know, the clan has already developed a reputation through the continent as a neutral faction that wishes not to take any sides in the war. We can usually be identified by the collars we always wear prominently." Ymmyj pointed at his own jabot collar, layers of blue cloth pinned by a brooch that depicted the guild's emblem. "By the way, Lady Clair, Hector already met these two. He was also curious about them, and knowing him and his attitude of being always up-to-date, the news about their arrival reached him right away. In fact, they also signed up to join the guild, although they haven't been issued the official collars yet."

"I see," Clair then cleared her throat and formally introduced herself to the two Greetonite engineers as the commander of the Aquarian Runological Unit. Cliff and Fayt also introduced themselves. After a short briefing, Clair had noticed how exhausted they looked. Besides, it had been quite a trek walking through an abandoned mine and the lengthy mountain path without getting much rest. Nel stayed behind in the conference room, for she and Clair still had much to discuss regarding the mission at hand.

* * *

Cliff and Fayt proceeded to the guest room upstairs and conversed about the day, while Ymmyj continued to take a walk around town, assessing how much damage had been done and looking for someone to offer 'comfort' to, or rather, his next conquest. He had noticed that just like some of the houses by the town gates, the large tavern by the gate that led to the Kirlsa-Aire Hills had also been destroyed.

"Dammit. Now what? We were booked here on this day," complained a young man, who was accompanied with two others. He had a lute with him, so he was most likely a musician. Rather, it was also likely that the group was a band of traveling musicians. "We've run out of Fol, and we're still worn out from that last trek."

"Calm down, it's not like-" his bandmate attempted to calm him down with a tap on the shoulder.

"Me? Calm down?" the lute player swatted his bandmate's hand away. "That's like telling a stabbed soldier to stop bleeding!"

"But still, not much we can do about this situation..."

"So what do we do now? Just mope around!?"

"But that's what _you're_ doing."

Ymmyj noticed and recognized them as the band of runologists whom he had watched in Peterny's rather sketchy tavern some time ago. He walked up to them, offering some of the Fol in his pocket.

"Thanks," the calmer one of the group said. "See? There are people willing to help us out."

"Don't mention it," Ymmyj said. "Besides, I happen to be a fan. I remember seeing your small show back in Peterny. It's a pretty interesting idea to imbue thunder runes in your instruments to produce a heavier sound and a novel twist to the troubadour."

"But we've been at it for years, and we're still here," the lute player complained. "Down in the dumps because of that Apris-forsaken war. And we can't do a damn thing because we aren't strong enough. We're just fortunate enough to be booked once in a blue moon, and well, this happened. If we're not doing gigs, we usually do menial jobs such as clean houses and tend to chicken coops. We went here to play music. _Not_ to do those menial jobs! This is ridiculous!"

"Then again, we've no choice, really," Ymmyj said in an attempt to calm the angered frontman. "I guess you can help those guys rebuild the tavern. At the end of all this, it's gonna be for your own good. People will recognize you for your music, you will make a shit-ton of Fol, and you will even be recognized in Greeton, then you will never have to do those menial jobs again." The huffed frontman took a deep breath and walked away, shouting unintelligible gibberish along the way.

"He can get really riled up that bad. He's almost as scary as Albel when he gets infuriated like that," the third man finally spoke up after keeping hush for a while. "He could have served in the Aquarian army with all that passion. But then again, being in the army needs one to have control over such passion."

"Y'know, I guess we should help those people in the tavern," Ymmyj said. They proceeded to the ruined tavern, and the two musicians continued to assess the situation. A dead body of a tavern girl crushed under the debris had just been recovered by two other members of Hector's hunting guild, and they carried the carcass to the graveyard beside the town's temple which miraculously survived the ransacking. Ymmyj remembered that she had been one of his conquests some time ago, that she was a married woman who had lost her husband to the war. Just like his parents, she also aspired to send her daughter to runology school and rise to the top caste.

Just then, the short-statured young man saw two familiar faces, one of a middle-aged man, the other of a woman about the same age as the man. The man was assembling some pieces of wood together, while the woman was picking out some flowers from a wooden bucket she had with her.

"Mom... Dad..." he thought to himself. Indeed, the Thymses, Gilderoy and Irma, were there. They were the two merchants from Peterny who adopted him twenty-one years ago and eventually became wealthy enough to live in Aquios. "What could they possibly be doing in a sad place such as here?"

"Hey... You look familiar. Have I seen you before?" Gilderoy, taking notice of the raven-haired young man's presence, stood up and examined the raven-haired bounty hunter. "...You look a lot like my son. He's been gone for six years, and we've been searching for him, but to no avail."

"I... I don't think so," Ymmyj cleared his throat after his blatant lie. "I'm Semaj Thornton, rank B member of the Affable Hector's Hunting Clan." Ymmyj showed his collar with the guild's emblem on it.

"Oh, my... You even sound like him. You speak in an accent that is reminiscent of the crisp way he pronounces his T's and K's," the older man said. "He's been nothing but good luck to us. He's a blessing from Apris," his adoptive father lamented and sighed. "Now, where is he? He left without even saying goodbye... Not a note, not a word. I hope he's okay. It's dangerous out there!"

"You'll probably see him, eventually. One way or another," Ymmyj did his best to assure his parents. Even so, he did not want to tell them the truth about his identity, that indeed, they were talking to their long-estranged adoptive son after six years. Besides, he had already turned away from them, and going back would mean that he would have to resume his runology studies. And that was not the life he wanted.

"Wait. Since you have mentioned something about being a member of a hunting guild, maybe you could help us find him? You will be abundantly rewarded for your efforts."

"Sure. I'll find him," Ymmyj said. "So, when and where did you last see him, anyway?"

"Six years ago... it was just another typical day. We just had dinner around the table back in our home in Aquios, and then, the morning after, he was gone without a trace," said Irma, who had joined in the conversation while she continued weaving flowers together. He turned his attention to his right side, where a middle-aged woman was sitting on a block of stone.

"Those flowers..." Ymmyj noticed his adoptive mother weaving a Palmira wishing charm made of some flowers that she picked up from the Mountain of the Gods just a little beyond the Duggus Forest to the west of Peterny.

"Yes, young man," his adoptive mother said, and Ymmyj sat next to her. He was watching her nimble fingers braid strands of stems together. "This is a Palmira Wishing Charm. Us who are too weak to fight the war go on pilgrimages to the holy mountain, pick these flowers, and weave them into these bundles. Together, we pray that the war would end soon."

"I'm familiar with it," Ymmyj said, even though he personally thought that superstitions were absurd. "When you do get a thousand of those, legends say that Palmira will grant you your wish. I am from Aquios myself. Or at least, I was, until I decided that I preferred the simpler life of a bounty hunter in a neutral faction."

"Personally, I'm praying that we would soon find Ymmyj, our son. Our precious only son... I'm praying as well that he's okay, that he wasn't thrown into a dungeon, made a slave, or killed by those Glyphian scum," Gilderoy said, the last two words laced with venom in his tone.

"My son... He was a brilliant young man. He was one of the best at sacred geometry, and he has near-prodigious skills in martial runology. At that rate, he could have risen to become the next commander of the Aquaria Runology Unit and, perhaps, be one of the few Aquarian males to become a top-ranking military officer. But he had his own share of emotional problems that, although he refused to tell us, we knew about them," Irma said. Ymmyj shuddered when he had learned that his mother most likely knew the embarrassing secrets and searing problems that he refused to divulge to anyone. But, although he refused to admit it, it warmed his heart to know that his mother did believe in his potential for greatness. "We knew that he's troubled with his studies in alchemy and compounding. Had he not been too full of pride that happened to juxtapose itself with his feelings of inferiority, we could have helped him sort those problems out. We could have hired Ansala to personally mentor him, no matter what the cost would have been. He was fifteen years old when he had disappeared, which would make him twenty-one now. I'd assume that he ran away because he was already fed up, and it would gash his pride to be held back. He was also hopelessly infatuated with this girl..."

"I know that feeling very well," Ymmyj sighed. "Let me guess: does he have issues with his appearance? Does he get bullied by the more popular jerk? Seems typical for an adolescent boy who is pursuing a fine young lady."

"Yes. He had issues with his appearance, as well," Irma confirmed. "You see, he's rather... peculiar. He's most likely a part-Menodix, but he looks mostly human, save for his tail. He was also quite short for a human male, but at the same time, he was quite tall for a Menodix. Sometimes, he would spend entire sleepless nights in front of a mirror, measuring the lengths of his various appendages and sizing himself up compared to his peers. The last time we saw him, his head was as high as my husband's shoulder. In fact, he was around as tall as you are now. And probably still is, because Menodix don't usually grow as tall as he is now... as you are now." Irma paused to examine the bounty hunter more closely. "That's strange... You really do look like him. I see him from every angle that I look at you. But it just can't be, because he has a tail. Unless of course, he's hiding it under his outfit..."

"It really can't be," Ymmyj said, trying his best to hide his nervousness from being around his estranged adoptive parents. "Surely, I may look like your son, but I am certainly not him," he continued to lie. "I might be able to help you look for him, though. I'm currently on a mission to accompany the two Greetonite engineers to Aquios for an important quest that could spell the end of this war once and for all."

"I see," Irma sighed. "For all these years, his presence in our lives has given unto us nothing but blessings from Apris. We became wealthy merchants over the fifteen years that we cared for him, although we almost broke our backs to send him to the prestigious runology school. We have decided to move here in hopes that we would find him somewhere down the line, and also to help those who have been victims of this ongoing war. It's the least we could do after Apris had showered us with His blessings. And now, I continue to be unwavering in my faith, both in that this war would end and that Ymmyj would be with us again." With that, she had finished the charm, the thousandth flower now in place. "There. All done. A thousand flowers..." Ymmyj looked on in admiration at his mother's extreme determination and at her handiwork. After all, he knew how difficult it was to find a single Palmira flower, let alone find a thousand more. He still refused to believe that for all his unworthiness, there was someone who loved him unconditionally, even though they were not even related by blood.

"I understand your laments. But then again, if he's been away for six years, had he been safe, don't you think that he's living his own life now? Whatever life that may be?" Ymmyj asked curiously. "He's twenty-one now. An adult who is old enough to legally drink any kind of cider or spirit that he wishes. If he really did survive, he's most likely paving his path now, whatever it may be. I can't really blame him for wanting to run away from his miserable life in runology school if he had a myriad of those problems you have mentioned. If ever I do find him and bring him back to you, would you actually send him back to runology school?"

"No..." Irma said, tears welling up in her eyes. "All I want is to see him again for a moment, alive and well. And then I would be able to formally see him off to his new life, whatever that may be. Isn't that what every parent is supposed to once their kids leave the nest?"

"But wouldn't you still prefer that your son be a renowned runologist?" Ymmyj asked again. "After all, runologists are on top of the caste system, next to royals. And you guys are wealthy merchants, the next caste after the runologist."

"Of course. I would have. Every parent has a dream for their child, but in the end, it's the child's prerogative to choose what to pursue and take upon himself the consequences of his choices," she explained.

"That's right," Gilderoy added. "We're not actually restricting our son that much. We're not here to clip his wings. We may come across as protective at times, but in the end, it's all for his own good."

"If it helps, maybe you can tell me what you would tell your son if he's here right now," Ymmyj said, still retaining the mask of being Semaj that he held on to. "I must tell you now that I'm sorry that I would not be able to guarantee my success in looking for him. Perhaps, he had already made it to Greeton and pursued the coveted life of a mechateer."

"Please... If you ever find him, first tell him that you will be bringing him back to us, and if he disagrees, tell him that we won't be sending him back to runology school, and that we only wish him good fortune in his life ahead," Irma said. "Tell him, as well, that we love him unconditionally, no matter what. And you, Semaj, is it? Do return to me, though, if you ever accomplish this mission. I just want to know that he's okay. I don't want to just believe. Unwavering faith is good, but there is nothing like actually knowing."

Ymmyj was stunned by the words he had heard from his adoptive parents, and he tried to absorb them. At that point, he was already trying to decide if he would come clean right there, now that he had no reason to worry that his parents were interfering with his mission. After all, no one else knew of his dark secret, of his life of debauchery as a shapeshifting seducer.

"Lost in thought, young man?" Gilderoy asked after a few moments. "Or perhaps a loss of food in the stomach? I could pretty much hear your stomach rumbling over the cries of the people here."

"Yeah, I guess I just need to eat. Besides, I came from a long trek all the way from Kirlsa, through the caverns, and through the mountain path. All of that in one day without rest. Phew!"

"There's a small bakery in this town, just in front of the inn where you can rest up," Ymmyj's adoptive father said. "Thank Apris we still have enough food for the townspeople, although it's mostly scraps nowadays. But still, any food is better than no food."

"Thanks..." Ymmyj said as he went to the food store and bought himself a few slices of unleavened bread and some steamed buns which have considerably cooled down. Those were all that the store had to offer at the moment for they had run out of apple pie, their specialty.

* * *

"That's definitely him," Irma told her husband after much pondering. "Semaj _is_ Ymmyj. My wishes did come true. And since he's accompanying the two Greetonite engineers to Aquios, he's most likely going to tap their expertise towards the development of a superweapon that would help Aquaria win this war once and for all."

"And you actually believe that?" Gilderoy rolled his eyes.

"Well, how does a middle coattail move on its own even against the wind when the other two coattails don't? It's definitely a real tail wrapped in ribbons to blend in with the two other coattails," Irma said. "And the resemblance to our son is uncanny. What would be the chances that someone of his species would grow to be that tall, yet still be short for an average human male? And also sound and speak much like him, down to his peculiar way of crisply pronouncing his T's and K's? And the runological forces that whir around him are uniquely Ymmyj's. I can see it." Irma's ability as an Elicoorian to see runological forces around sentient beings was slightly stronger than that of the average Peternian merchant.

"Yeah... I noticed those quirks, too," Gilderoy said after some pondering. "And the way he twirls his hair when he's lost in thought."

"And when he changed his name to Semaj, he must have decided to change his life, as he had subtly told us. I was simply going along with his act. But still, he could have told us about his issues directly so that we could help him out by any means. Well, at least he allowed me the opportunity to see him off, even though he never outright admitted it."

"It does seem to be for the best to let him pave his own path now. Besides, he seems to be doing this for a noble cause."


	6. Chapter 6

Jimmy's Note: 'tis the chapter in which Ymmyj finally meets Albel... And Ymmyj and Cliff discuss heavy metal music. Yep.

With that said, there's gonna be a shit-ton of Albel fanboying ahead and visualizing how he looks like in leather pants. As Tara Gilesbie puts it, 'viower excretion advisd.' (Yep, I'm talking about the Draco in Leather Pants trope. Then again, Albel's P3 outfit actually has him wearing slim-fitting pants, presumably made of a special kind of breathable leather that allows ease of movement.)

Also, there's gonna be certain scenes in this chapter that will up the rating to an M.

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

The sky had already darkened, and Ymmyj returned to the mansion. Ymmyj didn't particularly find anyone to add to his list for a third night in a row anyway, and as with the previous days, he was too exhausted to be at his best in the game of wooing a conquest to the inn suite for one night of debauchery. Fayt was already fast asleep; he had taken the opportunity to rest up in preparation for tomorrow. Besides, he knew that he didn't want to hold the party back with his inexperience and his recent headaches that have plagued him. Cliff was still awake, munching on some steamed buns and biscuits that the soldier on kitchen duty had prepared.

"What's up?" Cliff greeted him.

"Nothing much," Ymmyj replied. "But man, this town's been badly damaged, quite far from the quaint, beautiful riverside village I remember it to be."

"This view isn't so bad, though," Cliff said as he looked out the window. The room offered him a vantage point of the Palmira Plains beyond the river, as well as the Kirlsa-Aire Hills.

"But still... It's even worse than I thought, and I saw these musicians that should have been booked to perform at the tavern tonight," Ymmyj continued. "I happen to be a fan of their innovative idea of using thunder runes to produce a heavy, distorted sound."

"Oh, we call that sound 'metal' back where we live," Cliff said. "Only, we use electricity instead of runology to produce the distorted sound. It's a musical tradition that's almost nine centuries old, passed on from generation to generation. It was originally conceived as a battle cry against the status quo. It caught on for a while, but _genuine_ metal is becoming a lost art now."

"So, it dates even further back than the time when Aquaria and Airyglyph were still one, known as the Kingdom of Aquor. That was about 700-300 years ago or so... Well, needless to say, they were rather pissed off. The frontman was quite riled up and angered that he lost all mood to keep the show going. Then again, nobody really likes war, save for a few megalomaniacal, greedy noblemen who are indifferent to people's sufferings. But I'm still wondering though; how did you guys end up here, anyway? You still haven't told me."

"It's a rather long story that would take all night to tell, so I'll just tell you the short version," Cliff began. "We come from a small country to the far east of here. It's a rather small island nation in the continent of Greeton that nobody here has ever really heard of, but we've got some pretty solid tech. Fayt's father got captured by an enemy nation, and we're looking to rescue him using a newly-developed airship model, but it broke down on the way, and we crash-landed in Airyglyph."

"And this UP3 Fayt's talking about... What is it?"

"It's, uh... a law in Greeton that forbids us from interfering with the affairs of the other, uh... continents since they have closed their..."

"Oh, I should have known," Ymmyj interrupted and filled in the details. Cliff sighed in relief. "Greeton had closed their gates on us centuries ago, and there is a law there that forbids the Greetonites from interfering with the affairs of the other continents. And maybe that is why Fayt is reluctant to help Lady Nel out."

"Yeah. Straight as an arrow," Cliff said. "I was only able to convince him to move along so that we could make a run for it and maybe return to our home after that hot chick-"

" _Lady Nel_..." Ymmyj corrected.

"...broke us free from that horrible dungeon. But she's actually scarier than she looks, and I had a hunch that she really would stick her daggers through our throats had we even attempted to make a run for it and leave them be."

"But isn't that what the laws of your nation prescribe?"

"Yeah, but if we refuse to cooperate with her, it's back to the dungeon for us or baselards through our necks. Honestly, I'd rather experience the latter. 'Sides, if ever Airyglyph would need our help, I don't think their terms would be any better. And Fayt would never be able to see his dad in this life ever again. If there was anyone we'd rather cooperate with, it would be Lady Nel, the fine young lady who broke us free. So that's all for now. That's how we ended up here. I think we should rest up. It's gonna be a hectic day tomorrow."

"How do you say that?"

"Just a hunch."

* * *

"I have to go rescue Tynave and Farleen," Nel said firmly as she left the room that she and Clair shared in the mansion.

"But, your mission..." Clair replied as she combed the strands of her silver hair and let it loose from the criss-crossed purple ribbons that usually held them together.

"I can't just leave them there! Who knows what those Black Brigade soldiers would do to them!?" Nel adamantly insisted, zipping up her last piece of armor. She also checked if she had enough berries and other supplies to survive the perilous mission she had chosen to undertake.

"All right, I'll be sending some soldiers and runologists with you, as well."

"That would be unnecessary. I clearly know that I'm gonna be running straight into an Airyglyph trap, and I would rather you spare those guarding this town."

"In that case, it seems that I'll be taking over your duty from now on. I'll be bringing the two Greetonites and Semaj to Aquios, while you go and rescue Tynave and Farleen and catch up with us later on. We'll be doing the negotiations tomorrow morning."

"Very well," Nel said as she embraced her silver-haired lover and kissed her goodbye.

* * *

"...so that's how the Greetonites ended up here," Ymmyj told Hector the entire story through the compact communicator.

"Well then. You'd better make sure that they go home safely so that Fayt could see his father again," Hector replied. "We are neutral in the war, as I always remind you. But even if maintaining that neutrality would mean, rather contradictorily, to cooperate with an Aquarian such as Lady Zelpher, then so be it. What we are after here is to help end the war as soon as possible no matter what so that trade lines between Airyglyph and Aquaria could be reopened and people could walk the roads outside towns safely again."

"Yes sir," Ymmyj said as he closed the compact communicator. He was still restless despite his exhaustion, though. He took his journal from his satchel and went to the desk in the room. As he was writing, he sensed the door opening and saw Nel. The redheaded lady took a pause and bowed before leaving without saying a word.

"What was that all about, anyway?" Ymmyj asked to no one in particular. "Maybe I should go investigate." He put his journal back in his satchel and silently left the room where his two other companions were still fast asleep. He followed Nel all the way to the Kirlsa-Aire Hills, where, true enough, there was cavalry from the Storm Brigade waiting for them.

"Semaj!? What are you doing!?" Nel asked. "It's dangerous out here!"

"I'll tell you later! We have to fight these guys first!" Ymmyj replied as he struck a lum's head with his eskrima sticks. After what was quite a bit of a struggle, Nel and Ymmyj did emerge victorious, but not without a few scratches. "Actually, I was about to ask you the same question myself," Ymmyj continued. "You went to our room, paused, and bowed without saying a word. Of course, I would wonder what was up with that, so I followed you to investigate."

"Tynave and Farleen are being held hostage in the Kirlsa Training Facility, and they're demanding the two escapees, which would be the Greetonite engineers, in exchange," Nel explained. "I would not let that happen. Airyglyph would get neither my subordinates nor the two Greetonite engineers."

"Neither would I let that happen," Ymmyj said. "And I will also not let you go all the way there by yourself, y'know."

"You may be forgetting that I went down to Airyglyph's dungeon all by myself to break the two Greetonites free. Also, you may be forgetting that Hector had entrusted you with the mission to accompany Cliff and Fayt to Aquios."

"Wasn't that _your_ mission, too?"

"Clair would be taking care of that from now on, and you were supposed to go with them as well."

"But we're almost in the Kirlsa Training Facility, and I'm not gonna turn my back on you now," Ymmyj said. "Besides, we'll catch up with them, sooner or later. And that place is the stronghold of the Black Brigade. It's not that I'm underestimating you; in fact, I've seen your skills, and I'm quite impressed. It's just that you will be greatly outnumbered by them."

* * *

"Fayt, Cliff... Good morning. Did you sleep well?" Clair asked.

"Yes, thank you kindly," Cliff replied.

"I'm glad to hear it. Right, let us begin the negotiations."

As soon as Fayt and Cliff took their seats, the bluenet immediately noticed that Nel was missing. He also assumed that Ymmyj was out doing some early morning training, or something like that, and that he would be back soon.

"She's uh... She had other duties to attend to," Clair halfheartedly assured Fayt. Cliff already had a hunch that something was amiss.

"What!?" said a surprised Fayt.

"Don't worry," Clair tried her best to assure Fayt. "I'm taking over her duties as far as you three- wait. Where's Semaj?"

"Yeah. He should be back here by now," Fayt said. "I have a bad feeling about this. Something is definitely fishy around here."

"Anyway," Clair continued. "Now that you are in Aquaria territory, we will be able to ensure your safety whether or not you assist us. We would have to retain custody of you until we reach the Royal City of Aquios, but you may provide us with your answer at that point."

Cliff had noticed that unlike Nel who could be rather inflexible to the point of coming across as coercive, Clair was bending over to meet them halfway. Clair had expressed her sentiments that she would like Fayt and Cliff to work for them, but she would not be forcing them if they so refuse.

"So, Fayt, what do? They'll be letting us go after we get to Aquios," Cliff asked. Fayt closed his eyes for a moment so that he could collect his thoughts.

"Is something wrong?" Clair asked.

"No, it's nothing," Fayt replied.

"If you have any questions, I'll answer to the best of my abilities."

"All right, then I'll ask. What is Nel's new mission?" Fayt was also sensing that something was amiss. "And where could Semaj possibly be?"

"Why would you ask that? She's no longer your concern. And as for Semaj, he's probably taking care of yet another mission for the meantime."

"Wait. Hold it... _No longer my concern_?" Fayt was taken aback by Clair's words. "She told us her mission was to take us safely to the Royal City. How could she just leave us here? Same with Semaj!"

"To you, it appears that they have abandoned their missions?" Clair asked.

"Well... Yeah. I didn't know either of them for that long, but I got the impression that they're both the type who don't leave any mission incomplete." There was silence that filled the room as Clair thought for a moment.

"She went to rescue Tynave and Farleen, didn't she? And Semaj followed her," Cliff then broke the silence.

"What!?" Fayt almost jumped off his seat in surprise.

"Lady Clair, is this true?" asked a female soldier.

"Why would you think that?" the silver-haired commander questioned Cliff.

"Last night... she came to our room," Cliff began.

"Huh? When?" Fayt was still in disbelief.

"While you were snoring like a babe, I was wondering what she wanted, but all she did was bow and leave without saying a word. I was pretending to be asleep, so I didn't think she realized I was watching her. It makes sense, though, considering the situation. That's probably what you overheard them talking about back in Kirlsa before we met Hector for the first time. Semaj was also still awake that time; he was seated by the desk with a book he was scribbling on. He noticed Nel as well, and as soon as she left, I also saw Semaj leave. Can't blame him, though, because, after all, he knows it's too risky for Nel to go alone."

"Is that true, Clair? I can't believe it!" Fayt's disbelief grew even more just when he thought he was already brimming with it.

"Yes, it is..." Clair took a deep breath. "She went to rescue Tynave and Farleen."

"And yeah, a dark-haired young man clad in black and blue followed her," a male soldier, who most likely was the night sentinel by the Kirlsa-Aire gate, affirmed. "I tried to stop him, but he was too fast."

"If you knew what she was doing, why didn't you stop her? And why didn't you at least stop Semaj?" Fayt questioned his blond companion's sanity.

"We all have our missions; mine's to bring you back to our leader. And I stick to my missions," Cliff replied.

"But...!" Fayt was starting to get frustrated that almost none of his questions were being directly answered.

"All right. I will explain," Clair said, and she paused for a while before she began. "Around the time you arrived in Kirlsa, we received a message from Airyglyph. They told us that the two women are hostages, and they demanded you in exchange. This is not possible... So she went to rescue them."

"But... All by herself!? Or, at least, had Semaj not followed her," Fayt said. "But still, going back to Airyglyph territory is dangerous. Who knows what would happen to them!?"

"So much for the one who even called Semaj out on risk assessment because of his idea to pass the Kirlsa-Aire Hills to get here faster, when she herself would be willing to go through such risks," Cliff observed.

"That's Nel for you," Clair was proud of her lover and best friend's extreme determination. "And Semaj most likely just wanted to make sure that she will be safe, as with all of us. But still, she's right about risk assessment. It would have been too dangerous for the four of you to pass the hills to the southwest of this town to go here because you're fugitives being pursued by Glyphian soldiers. And Semaj doesn't really know what he's gonna be in for."

"Why didn't she tell us?" the female soldier questioned. "We'd have gone with her!"

"Perhaps because the odds of her success are almost zero, even with Semaj," Clair speculated. "They'll likely walk into an Airyglyph trap. I tried to stop her... but there was no way. She would never abandon those who work for her. Still, at this state, it's actually less dangerous for her to go without you two."

"She pretends to be all business, but she's the type that can't let go," Cliff observed.

"At any rate, this is our situation. Please do not worry about them," Clair did her best to stay calm and collected even as a lump formed in her throat at the mere idea of telling the two not to worry about her lover and the black-haired bounty hunter. "We must hurry on to Aquios. Although this is a relatively safe area, nowhere is completely safe."

"Where'd they demand it take place?" Fayt suddenly asked.

"Why do you want to know that?" Clair asked back.

"I can't let them do this. Their lives are more valuable than that. Do people really think that the only way to end this war is to throw away their own lives!? I'm going after them," Fayt uttered with conviction, slamming a fist on the hardwood conference table. "I have a few words to tell them, especially Nel."

"All right, Fayt! I was waiting for you to say that," Cliff said.

"I cannot allow this!" Clair disagreed with their rash decision. "Nel told us of your skills, but this enemy is too strong, even for you."

"Hmph. Don't worry about us," Cliff asserted confidently, cupping a clenched fist with his other hand. "I dunno what she told you, but we can fend for ourselves! And when Fayt gets riled up like this, he can get even nastier than Nel! He's the most stubborn, hardcore kid around, seconded perhaps by Semaj."

"In that case... I'll be sending the soldiers here with you," Clair hesitantly agreed.

"That would be unnecessary. We'd be more maneuverable in smaller numbers. After all, marching in there with an army is just like asking for them to spot us. And... I doubt that you can spare the guards, given the situation." Cliff further convinced Clair to allow them to go, telling her that if Nel had trusted them, she should, too. Clair then told them of the location of the training facility on the southeastern side of Kirlsa and how to go there.

"We've got a ways to go to catch up with them. We've gotta hurry," Cliff said.

"Right!" Fayt replied, and they left the conference room, took their things from the guest room, and went on their way to the training facility.

* * *

"Well, it's all wastelands out here," Fayt noted as he observed the surroundings. "No wonder the people in Airyglyph are starving. There aren't enough farms out here to grow food at all."

"And yet, that nasty Inquisitor has the nerve to be so offendingly rotund in the face of the situation right now," Cliff replied angrily as he kicked a poisonous mushroom that attacked them on the way.

"Y'know, what we're doing right now... It may land us back into that terrible place with that terrible waste of space. But still," Fayt insisted, "we're not gonna allow them to just throw away their lives like that! Not without a fight!" He flew foot-first into a Black Brigade soldier on patrol and stabbed him in the heart after unleashing a barrage of combos on him. Blood spurted out of the armor and stained some of Fayt's clothes. "Black Brigade soldiers... We must be close."

"It seems so," Cliff replied. "Yep, I think that's the one." He pointed at an imposing stone structure that had been partially built into the mountains.

"Looks rather haunting..." Fayt said. "Let's go!"

"Yeah!"

"It's kinda dark in here," Fayt said, observing his surroundings which were only lit by a few torches spaced evenly apart on the walls. He noticed that the stone walls have been splattered with blood, and from afar, some faint screams of agony could be heard.

"And no one's here. I wonder if we're too late?" Cliff asked.

"Don't say that," Fayt replied.

"You!" a sinister voice interrupted them almost immediately as soon as they took their first step forward. Almost immediately, the two were surrounded.

"Well, looks like we're gonna be in for a fight!" Cliff prepared himself for battle. Fayt also brandished his sword and quickly parried a stab that was coming at him. Cliff managed to take down the soldiers near him with a few swift punches and kicks. His superior strength that surpasses normal humans made the battle a piece of cake.

"Man, what pushovers. It'll be smooth-sailing if they're all that easy," Cliff remarked. Fayt sighed at the lack of challenge and concluded that had they gotten enough food and rest back in Airyglyph, they could have beaten the soldiers back in the Traum Mountains even without the black-haired bounty hunter arriving just in time to block a sword that had been aimed for Nel's heart.

"Still, be alert," Fayt replied as he looked around for any more soldiers on the way to get them.

"I know; who do you think I am, anyway?"

* * *

"Where is the other Crimson Blade spy? Capture her, you bumbling fools!" Shelby, second-in-command of the Black Brigade, hollered at his subordinates.

"We're sorry, m'lord, we had her cornered, but she put up quite a fight..." replied a knight.

"I ordered you to apprehend her, not _admire_ her!" Shelby shouted.

"Yes, m'lord."

"Also, what happened to whats-his-face? Y'know, her dark-haired, androgynous companion?" Shelby hit his forehead with his palm in exasperation. "What happened to that girly-boy!? Did you at least manage to capture him? _Please_ tell me you did at least that."

"Same... He also put up quite a fight, m'lord," the knight apologized profusely. "Not bad for some random knave from Hector's hunting clan. That, I gathered based from his jabot collar with the guild's emblem on his brooch. Maybe that's why he, of all people, was entrusted by Hector to follow the escapees and know what they're up to. And he also knows how to use runology!"

"Could it be? Hmph. Those Aquarian scum most likely sent lady-boy as a spy!" Shelby scoffed. "And that fool Hector interfering with affairs such as this and letting this happen? At the rate he's going, he's bound to be captured soon for working against Airyglyph when his _headquarters_ are in Airyglyph territory..." Shelby paused for a while, and noticed his subordinate still standing at attention where he was. "What are you doing just standing there, you insufferable fool? Get back to work. Capture either one of them, or better yet, both of them! Don't fail me this time!"

"Yes, m'lord," the docile, incompetent knight replied and walked away.

* * *

"Sir Shelby!" called another knight.

"What is it? You've got the Crimson Blade spy? Or at least the androgynous freak who accompanied her?"

"No, sir... a report. And a missive from Duke Vox."

"From the captain of the Dragon Brigade? Hmph. Give me your report, first."

"Our sentries have spotted two suspicious men within the compound. Based on our intelligence, they may be the two escapees..."

"Hmm... so they've come to the rescue, too? This is unexpected," Shelby laughed heartily. "I thought sending only one Crimson Blade and one uncultured philistine from a lowly hunting guild was a bit light. The compassion of these followers of Apris is really playing into our hands. Find and capture them all. Don't fail me."

"Yes, m'lord," the knight replied and handed over the scroll he held in his hands. "And here... the missive."

Shelby looked at the missive, tore it apart, and tossed it away. He let out yet another hearty laugh.

"What is it, Sir Shelby?"

"This is rich! It seems Albel, that _other_ girly-boy, will not be back for some time."

"Our captain...? But why?" the knight snickered under his breath. He recalled how he had seen what was underneath the captain's sarong one too many times whenever he was in action.

"Seems the Captain of the Dragon Brigade has little love for our captain... Albel's being detained for a while. We're supposed to take care of things in the meantime."

"I see. By capturing the two escapees before Sir Albel returns, m'lord will get all the credit. With such accolades, you might even be promoted to captain yourself!"

"Exactly. Our prey is now within grasp. We must act quickly- before he returns!" Shelby commanded with urgency. "Don't kill the escapees; they must be taken alive!"

"Sir!" the knight saluted and went on to look for either Nel, Ymmyj, Fayt, or Cliff.

* * *

"A kitchen? Hmm..." Nel examined her surroundings when she entered a large room near the empty, blood-stained prison cells. She had told Ymmyj when they arrived at the training facility that it would be better if they split up so that there's a better chance of either one of them making it to the area where Tynave and Farleen were being held hostage.

Just then, she heard someone about to enter. As quickly as she could, she took one of the aprons and disguised herself as a cook. After all, she _could_ actually cook. Aside from cutting up foes, her double daggers could also be used to nimbly slice lettuce with little-to-no effort.

"Who are you? Are you the new cook?" the knight who had given Shelby the missive from earlier entered the room, took off his helmet to reveal fair skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. He smiled flirtily at Nel.

"Y-yes, I am," Nel replied and smiled back. "It's my first day!" The soldier then looked at her from head to toe. He noticed her flaming, red hair and the runes on her thighs, and he knew right then that that 'cook' was actually the Crimson Blade spy.

"You're good-looking. I'm sure you can do more than just _cook_ ," he suddenly grabbed Nel, catching her off-guard. "Seems you can suck _cock_ , too."

"What are you doing!?" Nel shouted.

"These things... Will be overlooked," his deep, sinister voice breathed against Nel's ear as her hands were pinned above her, her wrists pressed against the blood-splattered, stone wall in one of the prison cells near the kitchen. "I will bring you to the boss, right after I have my way with you." He winked at her, and his rough, sword-calloused hand wandered to her thigh, inching its way inside of her skirt. But just when his fingertip had barely brushed against the scant, black fabric that covered her private parts, Nel swiftly broke free of his hands that pinned her own against the wall and used both runology and her baselards to defend herself from the unwanted sexual advances. The unmasked soldier groaned in pain as Nel trampled on and kicked his squirming body.

"Death awaits the overconfident. Remember that!" Nel said. A shrill scream and various kinds of metal and pottery that clanged against the stone floor broke the brief silence in the short moments when Nel examined her assailant's bloodied carcass.

"What happened here!?" a young lady with short, brown hair was shocked at the sight of the soldier that had been reduced to a bloodied pulp. She wiped some of the hot soup that got on her shoes. She was soon followed by her mother, a much-older, stern woman who was most likely the head cook in the barracks.

"Oh, my..." The older woman gasped, although she did not drop the basket of vegetables she had with her.

"Have you seen two other women anywhere around here? One with short, blond hair, and another one with light purple hair," Nel asked.

"Y-yeah," the smaller, younger woman shuddered in fear at the redhead whose skin and clothes were stained by her would-be rapist's blood. "L-lady Nel!? What brings you here?"

"Those two women. They're my subordinates, taken by the Black Brigade. They demand that I bring back the engineers from Greeton in exchange for them. But I won't allow that. Now, where are they?" Nel asked again.

"Th-they're on the uppermost area of the facility. The arena. Two women strapped to wooden breaking wheels..."

"How do I go there? I've been searching all night, and I must have lost my way after fending off countless soldiers."

"Return to the first floor, and make your way through a sealed door right after several halls in the left side when you face the back of the facility," she explained. "There's a lift in that room that leads to the roof deck. You're gonna need a key..."

"You mean this one?" Nel showed her a key made of cuprite. "I got this from this guy over here." She kicked the carcass again.

"Y-yes. That one. Usually, only high-ranking soldiers and house servants such as myself are given those keys," she said. "Well, I wish you luck!" The meek, young cook smiled at Nel.

"All right," Nel said and ran back to the first floor.

Just a few moments after Nel left the kitchen area, Ymmyj had entered the same place. He shook his head when he saw the bloodied carcass and recognized the fallen knight as one of his conquests from some time ago. He remembered seeing him slacking off in the tavern, and he had disguised himself as a tavern girl. He knew that this one preferred to play rough, and he remembered that he had woken up the day after with sore legs, and he was barely able to walk. He took a look at the wounds that have been inflicted on him and deduced that he had attempted to do something nasty to Nel, but Nel was able to save herself.

He examined the armor's patterns and used his shapeshifting and animation runes to temporarily conjure himself a similar type of armor. He looked around, and when he saw no one else in the area, he also changed his form slightly to make himself look a full foot taller than he actually is so as not to draw suspicion towards his presence as an unusually diminutive soldier. He had retracted his Menodix tail, as well. With the disguise in place, he entered the kitchen when he smelled some soup. He hadn't gotten any sleep or food for quite some time, so the idea of food nearby was rather encouraging for him.

"Yes. Your rations, sir," the older cook said. The younger handed him a bowl of pumpkin soup, a slice of gratin, and some gooseberry juice. He took off his helm so that he could eat and he received the food.

"Thank you," Ymmyj said and smiled at the younger cook. "Y'know, gratin _is_ my favorite food. Especially the ones with a shit-ton of molten cheese on top of a crispy, golden brown crust."

"Wait, have I seen him before?" the stern matron wondered.

"He's kinda pretty for a guy, though," the young brunette said.

"But still, if he's a fresh face in here as I think he is, it should be impossible for him to have the marks of high rank on his armor," the older woman suspected.

"Thanks for the good food. And for calling me pretty," Ymmyj said to the young lady with a smile.

"You're welcome, Sir," the short-haired brunette replied.

"You must have never seen me before because I'm usually too busy training so that I could be captain someday and perhaps be even more popular with the ladies than Albel," Ymmyj said with a smirk and a sultry laugh as soon as he finished his food. "And I _will_ allow ladies to join the Black Brigade as well for as long as they'll do their jobs as soldiers properly. Equal opportunity guy here, y'see? Honestly, the Glyphian patriarchal tradition is holding us back."

"Wait. _Sir_ Albel? That pansy? Hmph. What a show-off. Those idiotic fangirls and fanboys that fawn over him are merely naive fools who don't know what they're gonna be in for," the older one interrupted. She pronounced the honorific preceding Albel's name with a begrudging respect obliged of her as a house servant. She grumbled cantankerously with venom in her voice. "Sir Shelby would make a better captain than that long-haired, claw-armed freak who dresses like a filthy harem slave."

"Well, enough small talk. Now, tell me, where did the Crimson Blade spy go?" Ymmyj changed his tone to a more demanding, stricter one, acting based on his disguise. "Based on the fresh wounds on the carcass outside this room, it seems she just came from here."

"She went down to the first floor," the younger cook said. "She's almost on her way to the lift in the secret room that leads to the rooftop where her subordinates are tied up and exposed to the sun's heat. Seems you've got a ways to go if you want to catch up with her, sir. She's most likely by the room where you need a cuprite key to enter."

"Cuprite key?" Ymmyj scratched his head confusedly. "Secret room?"

"Yeah. Doesn't a knight with your rank get one as part of government-issue equipment?" the older cook asked suspiciously. "And the secret room! The one with the lift! It's by the entrance, but you have to move to the leftmost hallway when you're facing the back of the facility!"

"I, uh... I must have misplaced it in the midst of this brouhaha," Ymmyj replied. "Oh yeah, right... _That_ room."

"Well then. Here, have my key," the younger woman said and handed over the key to him.

"Are you sure?" Ymmyj asked.

"By all means, pretty one, uh-Sir," she smiled. Ymmyj thought that perhaps, she could be the one for tonight, or perhaps, even _the one_ , because she had called him pretty even when he is almost in his real form; only, he was a full foot taller in his disguise. For someone as insecure as he was, any and all compliments mean a lot. But he would have to rescue Tynave and Farleen first.

"It's okay. I have no need for honorifics. What's your name, though?" Ymmyj then began to ask flirtatiously, momentarily forgetting about his cover as a harsh, high-ranking soldier.

"Mayu," she eagerly replied. Besides, it had been quite a while since anyone had asked her what her name was, let alone a pretty, androgynous high-ranking Black Brigade soldier who was _not_ Albel, who definitely thought of her for sure as just another worm. "And yours?"

"Uh... Terry. Terry Cotter," he replied, using yet another alias most likely derived from the material used for pottery. "Mayu, I'll catch up with you later, then." Just when he was about to leave, Mayu called his attention again.

"Say, you kinda look like Semaj Thornton, that _really_ short, androgynous guy from the Affable Hector's Hunter's Clan," Mayu observed. "Rumors say that his middle coattail is actually a real tail, and that he may be a Menodix or similar because of those oddities in his appearance. And he also knows how to use runology, which I find quite strange for someone such as he."

"Semaj Thornton? Nope, haven't heard of him. He's probably just another uncultured knave who's too incompetent to be accepted in Airyglyph's military brigades," Ymmyj said, and concluded that Mayu would probably end up as just another would-be, so-so notch in his bedpost. Another easy conquest won while in another form that was not truly his own. Blah. He was a bit miffed that Mayu put an emphasis on his shortness in describing him. " _Anyway_ ," he sighed, "I'll catch up with you later. I have a Crimson Blade spy to capture."

"Wait! Speaking of Semaj, though, I heard that he's also here," Mayu said.

"Well, that _really_ means I need to leave now," Ymmyj insisted. "It's either I capture that Zelpher lady, that lowlife from the hunting guild, or those two Greetonite fugitives, whom I have heard are already in the vicinity."

"All right then, I'll perhaps see you later," Mayu swooned as she watched Ymmyj run gracefully out of the area despite all the heavy armor he was wearing.

* * *

After a few hallways, Ymmyj had just the luck to run into Fayt and Cliff.

"You!" Cliff was about to punch Ymmyj in his disguise, but he was able to block the punch and take off his helm just in time for him to visually introduce himself to the Greetonite escapees.

"Huh?" Fayt was surprised.

"It's me," Ymmyj said.

"Semaj? But how?" Cliff questioned. "Aren't you a bit... On the smaller side? Last time I checked, the top of your head doesn't even reach my shoulders!"

"I defeated one of the soldiers and stripped him of his armor. I then put it on so that I won't have to worry about having to fight any of them. I need to catch up with Nel. She's almost on her way to the room with a lift that leads to the top floor."

"But still. It doesn't make any sense for you to grow a full foot taller, unless..."

"To cut the long story short, I enchanted the armor with runes so that they could fit me and make me look taller. Besides, a short Black Brigade soldier would look suspicious, don't you think? But we have to be fast," Ymmyj put the helm back on. "Keeping up the enchantments for too long can strain my mind and incapacitate me. Just follow my lead and pretend to be chasing after me. We've gotta catch up with Nel."

Ymmyj, Fayt, and Cliff ran downstairs and went to the leftmost hall. True enough, he could hear more soldiers nearby, and they seemed to be cheering.

"I have a hunch that something fishy going on around here," Cliff said. "We _really_ have to hurry!"

Ymmyj fumbled the key, which slightly slowed them down.

"What's the hold up?" Cliff asked, but just then, the door unlocked. Ymmyj, Fayt, and Cliff barged into the room, and, much to his shock, the soldiers have captured Nel.

"It's Nel!" Fayt exclaimed. "They had her cornered!"

"This is bad," Cliff said. "I knew my hunch was right!"

The soldiers were about to gang-rape her. One of the soldiers had gripped Nel's arms from behind her, and the other soldier took her weapons. Since Nel had been drained, her mind was too strained for her to be able to use runology to defend herself. She kicked and screamed to no avail.

"We've gotta help!" Fayt said.

"Let's do it!" Cliff replied. Ymmyj wanted to charge towards them, but he was still disguised, and changing back to his real form would reveal his shapeshifting powers to them.

"Yeah, that's it; take it you filthy whore!" A soldier that was standing by jeered as the soldier in front of Nel lifted up her skirt to reveal her black thong that contrasted with her smooth, creamy legs. Their cheers were suddenly interrupted by a flurry of fists.

"That is no way to treat a lady!" Cliff shouted. Sure, he may be a pervert who would always comment on every woman he sees, but rape and sexual harassment were things that triggered all of his berserk buttons and made them flare up a blinding shade of red.

"Hey, you're just in time!" The same soldier told Ymmyj, who then responded to that by casting an ice rune that froze right at their feet to stall their movements. He also cast a healing rune on Nel.

"Fayt! Cliff! What are you doing here? Where's Semaj? And did that Black Brigade soldier just use runology to help me?"

"That can wait until later!" Cliff replied.

"We're here to help!" Fayt added.

Ymmyj gestured for Fayt and Cliff to help Nel fight the soldiers while he would go ahead and rescue Tynave and Farleen himself.

"That soldier is an Aquarian spy!" one of them had noticed as he attempted to make a run for the lift where Ymmyj stood, but not before the lift had already made it to the top floor, and he felt a foot of steel pierce his innards.

* * *

"You're late!" Shelby bellowed as soon as he saw Ymmyj come out the door to the arena. "You stand over there, behind the pillar behind the two hostages and wait for my cue," Shelby pointed at them. "When either the Crimson Blade spy, the Greetonites, or the dark-haired androgynous hunting clan member arrives, the first batch of lower-ranked soldiers will attack them. If they don't manage to beat the shit outta them, then the three of you will attack by my side. Also, after this, you will have to do fifty push-ups. And fifty more if they manage to break the hostages free, you bumbling, unprofessional fool! That is, if you manage to stay alive."

"Yes, m'lord," Ymmyj replied through gritted teeth in a form of begrudging respect and ran to the pillar behind Tynave and Farleen, who had both been exposed to the elements for quite some time. They had several cuts on their bodies, and their clothes have been mostly torn to shreds, just enough to hide what had to be hidden. Ymmyj stealthily cast a healing rune on them.

"That's strange... Why do I suddenly feel a little better?" Farleen asked.

"Maybe our faith in Apris helps," Tynave replied.

"Shut yer traps!" Shelby hollered.

* * *

"Why did you come all the way here?" Nel asked after they had defeated all the Black Brigade soldiers who violated her. "If you'd gone to Aquios, you would've been free!"

"We know; Clair told us," Fayt replied.

"So, why then!?" Nel questioned again.

"Nel, weren't YOU charged with bringing us to Aquios?" Fayt responded. "How could you neglect your duty?"

"I..."

"Yeah. What he said," Cliff interrupted. "Besides, I didn't appreciate the fact that you left without saying goodbye."

"Cliff..." was all Nel could say. She would need to get some rest later on to recover from all that had happened today.

"We'll give you a piece of our minds later," Fayt said. "Let's rescue Tynave and Farleen first."

"With the three of us, we won't even break a sweat! And speaking of which, Semaj is the 'soldier' who helped you," Cliff said. "He disguised himself as a Black Brigade soldier so that he could go ahead and rescue the two women himself."

"But, wasn't he shorter...?" Nel asked, still shaken from what had recently transpired between her and the soldiers who had almost captured and enslaved her.

"Yeah. He told us he enchanted the armor he wore with some runes," Fayt said. "Besides, a short soldier would look suspicious."

"Animation runes, perhaps," Nel said. "Most likely similar to the way the claw on Albel's arm works, only Semaj most likely cast them to be temporarily instead of using synthesis and alchemy with rare stones to make the effect permanent."

"Why didn't you use that symbol, er... rune, then? Could've saved you from those pervs," Cliff questioned.

"I had to allocate my mental power for more important runes," Nel replied. "Besides, the Black Brigade armor is too cumbersome."

There was a brief pause, and Nel then thanked them with a noticeably warmer tone in her usually cold, deep voice. They activated the lift where Ymmyj had just come from and waited for it to go down. When they had arrived to the rooftop, they saw the two hostages strapped to two Catherine wheels.

"Tynave! Farleen!" Nel called out.

"Man, this is just too obvious," Cliff sighed.

"Tynave! Farleen! We're here to help!" Fayt said.

"What are you doing here!?" Tynave was surprised upon seeing the trio, and Farleen continued to groan, still in a bit of pain from the stretching of her limbs.

"We'll get you out of here!" Fayt said.

"No, run! It's a trap!" Tynave replied.

"She's right... They're hiding... Behind those pillars..." Farleen added.

The first batch of soldiers came out and tried to stop them, but they were mere pushovers, as Cliff had predicted. When they were about to untie Tynave and Farleen from the wheels, they have already been set down by Ymmyj, who had then returned to his true form.

"Are you okay?" Fayt asked.

"Thank you guys so much," Tynave replied.

"I'm okay," Farleen added. "The pain isn't so bad."

"He untied us while you guys fought off those soldiers," Tynave explained, pointing at Ymmyj.

"And based on his collar, he's from Hector's hunting guild," Farleen said.

"Yep. Sir Hector sent me on a mission to know how and why the two engineers from Greeton fell from the sky and crashed into Airyglyph, accompany them to Aquios, and bring them back home safely to Greeton," Ymmyj confirmed to the two hostages. "Lady Nel left in the dead of night all by herself to rescue you two, but I would not let her go all by herself. So I followed her and disguised myself as a Black Brigade soldier to get past them more easily."

"The same reason we went all the way here," Cliff said. "She can be quite reckless at times, y'know? She's all business from the get-go, but she would never abandon those who work for her no matter what."

"You have faced incredible danger to come here and rescue us, Lady Nel," Tynave observed. "You shouldn't have!"

"Thank you so much!" Farleen added.

"Don't worry about it," Nel said, "If there's anyone you should thank, it's these guys: Fayt, Cliff, and Semaj."

"Forget it; it was nothing," Cliff said.

"Our pleasure, but we'd better get moving," Fayt added.

"Yep, it wasn't a biggie, but we gotta hurry. I'm sure the folks back in Arias are dead-worried about us," Ymmyj said. "And I gotta let Sir Hector know I'm at least safe."

"Right; our work here is done. Good riddance to this hellhole," Cliff said, but just then, he felt a presence of an enemy. "Huh?"

"Something's coming," Nel also felt the strange presence.

"Yeah; I can feel the hairs standing on the back of my neck," Cliff said.

"So it's you! The two who were in the strange object that fell into Airyglyph!" Shelby shouted when he emerged from his hiding place, along with two soldiers.

"So what if we are?" Cliff replied.

"Surrender peacefully, and I shall spare your lives," Shelby said, but he noticed that he was missing one soldier. "Wait a minute; shouldn't there be three of you?" He then asked the two soldiers that flanked him.

"M'lord, one of the soldiers you commanded is that androgynous, runology-using hunter in disguise!"

"What? This can't be!" Shelby shouted.

"Who the heck are you, anyway?" Fayt asked.

"That's probably Albel," Ymmyj thought to himself as he scratched his head in confusion and examined the man's stocky built, sun-darkened skin, and unkempt beard. "But _why the hell_ is he popular with the ladies again?"

"I am Shelby, Lieutenant of the Black Brigade," Shelby introduced himself. "Soon to be captain by the looks of things. You should curse your luck by falling into my hands."

"Oh," Ymmyj thought to himself again and took a closer look at the rotund, bearded lieutenant. "Yep. That's definitely _not_ Albel."

"After all that, now we have to fight Shelby!?" Nel was infuriated.

"Is he dangerous?" Fayt asked again.

"Yeah... He's the Black Brigade's second-in-command. They didn't leave him here for nothing."

"I can see that," Cliff said. "He looks way too powerful to be some watchdog. Not like the last bunch."

"Of course, we'll only spare the two men; the women and the androgynous freak may die," Shelby snickered.

"Over my dead body!" Fayt shouted.

"Folstar's gonna break into song in Peterny's main street before I'd let that happen!" Ymmyj added.

"If it comes to that, yes. Now, come quietly..." Shelby mocked.

"I'll give you quiet! And you? Kill me? Hah!" Cliff yelled.

"You will rue this day..."

"Not before _you_ do!" Cliff interrupted.

"Tynave, Farleen. You two, stand back!" Nel commanded.

"Yes, ma'am!" the two women said in unison.

"Semaj, watch over them. Make sure they're safe. We'll handle this!" she added.

"Sure thing," Ymmyj replied, although he was vexed that he wouldn't get to beat Shelby to a pulp himself. He tended further to their injuries with some first-aid supplies and berries he had brought with him, along with his healing runes.

"When did you learn how to use runology, anyway?" Farleen asked.

"I was a student back in the runology school in Aquios. I think you're a year my senior, but you probably have never heard of me because I was a rather unpopular, disenfranchised guy," Ymmyj explained as he strapped some bandages on Farleen's badly-injured arm. "I didn't make it past my third year, and so I decided to pursue other things. I thought being in the hunting guild would give me a new lease in life."

"I failed runology school, too. I barely made it long enough for me to at least earn my permanent runes," Tynave added. "But at least they still saw my potential as a melee fighter. That's why I tend to rely more on physical attacks."

"There," Ymmyj said when he fastened the last bandage on Tynave's arm. "All done. Thankfully, your injuries aren't actually so bad. Now, you guys be more careful next time."

* * *

"Hmph. Not as tough as his talk," Cliff said as he trampled on Shelby's quivering, incapacitated body. "This dog's bark is _way_ louder than its bite." Fayt drove his sword through the lieutenant's heart to make sure he was finished for good. Nel dispatched the two soldiers with double daggers through their necks.

"Pitiful. Over here," a deep, sinister voice suddenly called out just when they were about to leave.

Ymmyj immediately looked up and saw the man who owned that voice, standing on top of the crenellated upper walls that surrounded the rooftop arena. He was tall and slender in built, and his pointy, well-defined face was framed with two-toned fringes that were dark at the roots and a light blond at the tips. The longer parts of his hair were tied in two rattails by white ribbons that must have taken a long time to do. He was clad in the exact outfit that Ymmyj had heard being described back in the B-rank dormitories: a tight-fitting, purple bare-midriff top that flaunted his shapely abs, a high-slitted, purple sarong held in place by a cork-colored ceremonial belt, thigh-high stockings that accentuated his long, shapely legs, and a claw on what had been his left arm after an unfortunate accident involving a dragon's fire. Ymmyj couldn't help but notice how flattering the outfit looked on his lithe, gracefully slender frame that most likely befitted a skilled swordsman that relied more on agile, sweeping movements than brute force.

"Holy shit; he's gorgeous..." Ymmyj muttered under his breath to himself. "No wonder he's popular with the ladies... and men like me." He had expected Albel to be a hulking, bearded man similar in built to Cliff and with resemblance to Shelby, and he had assumed back then that he probably sometimes wore the skimpy outfit for the purposes of psychological warfare in the form of optical disservice.

Ymmyj had remembered seeing a similar-looking person some time ago when he was running an errand to collect the poison from various mushrooms that grew in the wasteland just outside the Kirlsa Training Facility, and he had mistaken the androgynous figure for an Aquarian spy that had been captured by the Black Brigade soldiers to be turned into a sex slave, as with what had almost happened to Nel just today. When he had confirmed that that figure looking down on them from on top of the fortification wall was indeed Albel the Wicked, his brief fantasies of him had resurfaced, but in a new, more intense form now that he had the correct face and body to project in his reveries. He knew right from that moment that he had found the one whom he could call the _ultimate conquest_. After all, from all the sources he had heard, Albel was still single at twenty-four years of age, and he seemed to be uninterested in all of his admirers and suitors.

* * *

 _Jimmy's Notes_ :

...okay, that has got to be one of the longest chapters I have written so far, weighing in at about 8,000 words or so, excluding the author's notes. But the climactic chapter which I have actually written before this one is over 10,000 words long, and none of it has script based off of in-game dialogue, focusing more on Ymmyj as a character.

The genres the pissed-off musicians from the previous chapter play are symphonic, folk, and progressive metal. In this story, 'Divine Spirit of Language,' the song that plays in-game when Albel first shows up (the last scene in this chapter) and during the battle against Crosell, is composed by this band.

In the very first, thankfully-never-published version of this fic, Ymmyj would manage to snag Albel as a 'conquest' at this point in the story under the guise of an _incredibly gorgeous_ greenhorn who aspired to become a member of the Black Brigade. He had managed to impress Albel by winning a spar session against him _thrice_ in a row. In the original fic version, Albel Nox would have been renamed Gringønir Knox in honor of Grignr from _Eye of Argon_. He would still be androgynous and slender-muscular in built, but instead of his in-game default outfit that looks like harem garb, he'd be wearing a fanservicey version of a Roman gladiator outfit that consists of a BDSM-ish cross-strap with some pauldrons for his top (he's shirtless), a really short miniskirt with really high slits, a black g-string, criss-crossing sandal straps that span his long legs and connect to his footwear. (On another note, I just Googled gladiator outfit, and there was no shortage of fanservice.)

In all versions of this story, one of the ten initiation rites in the Black Brigade (or the original-fic equivalent, which would have simply been referred to as the heavy cavalry brigade) is to last more than three minutes in a spar session against Albel himself instead of actually winning, because, after all, he's supposed to be impossible to defeat given his reputation as the most skilled swordsman in all of Airyglyph. Albel even made a wager that if anyone defeats him in the ritualistic spar-session within three minutes, he would surrender his position as captain and give it to that person immediately, and to this day, that position was never taken away from him. And at that rate, Albel was still going easy on the pledges, opting to use a wooden sword instead of a real one for the purposes of the ritual.

In all versions, including the original fic version I've deleted, he does decide that Mayu (or Marie; from this point on, all names in brackets are the planned renames of the characters had I pushed through with the original fic version) simply isn't his type. That's also why he didn't bother with Tynave (Tania) finding her too masculine for his taste, and Farleen (Marlene) mostly because of her annoying voice and appearance that is more 'cute' than 'hot.' Ymmyj's type in all versions, for either gender, is basically the feminine, slender one with 'fierce', chiseled facial features. Obviously, Lemeena (Evanka) and Albel (Gringønir) both fit in this set of criteria. Nel (Kythena), Maria (Maraiah), and Mirage (Margaux) also fit, but Ymmyj did not bother with any of the three of them in this version because of certain in-story circumstances.


	7. April Fool's Day 2016

Jimmy's Note: More Albel fanboying ahead, and this is the awesomest chapter so far! Fangz to tri-Ace for designing the sexiest video game character EVAR. I mean, a _fucking dude_ who manages to be both masculine and feminine at the same time, rocking that all-purple getup with a skirt, er... _sarong_ , with a slit up to _the fucking waist_ , purple _panties_ , Grade A zettai ryouiki stockings, and a skintight shirt-thing that bares a toned, slender midriff. ... _dayum_.

...

I've decided to fire my old beta-reader and took to writing by myself again, so yeah. Besides, I feel that she kinda holds back my creative juices. Okay, it's official: _Image_ is now an M-rated story. ;) Hawtya0isex0rz, romance, and fluff ahead. :3

...Don't you fik gay guys r lik so hawt? Well I am one. (Although to be more precise, I am a sensitive, bisexual goff guy.)

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

"Another one!?" Cliff was already quite pissed off that they would have to fight yet another one of those Black Brigade scumbags again. But this was no ordinary scumbag; that's for sure. Cliff was a bit confused when he first looked at the vermillion-eyed man looking down on them. The slender figure, the long, flowing hair and the revealing outfit were much too feminine for his liking, very much reminiscent of a fine, young lady that he had briefly pined over back where he lived.

"So this is what Shelby was up to," the slender, effeminate swordsman sneered. "How pathetic. Always strutting, preening his feathers..."

"With that rather provocative getup of yours? Hmph! Well, look who's talking about strutting!" Cliff butted in, shrugging off the fleeting attraction he had felt for the androgynous katana-wielder. Ymmyj was still stunned, as immobile as a marble statue, mouth agape, examining the way the swordsman's well-defined abdominal muscles rippled on the taut, smooth, sun-kissed skin. Ymmyj's eyes wandered slightly downward to admire those long, shapely legs clad in purple stockings. His eyes scanned back up to his bared upper thighs, and in his mind, he visualized a gust of wind blowing away the slitted sarong to reveal the enigma underneath it. In a fleeting moment of insanity, he thought of casting a weak wind rune, strong enough only to blow the skirtlike garment to the right side and upwards to humiliate him in front of the group, but he discarded the idea. Ymmyj assumed that Albel is an exhibitionist, and that the androgynous, long-haired samurai would not let himself succumb to defeat by modesty. If anything, he actually liked to strut his stuff. The thought of that only aroused Ymmyj more, but common sense told him to not cast the wind rune, because he knew that Albel would not let getting sharked* by some lowly maggot faze him at all.

"That gauntlet... You're Albel Nox!" Nel confirmed Ymmyj's conclusion.

"...but for him to lose to the likes of you," Albel continued. "Huh. Once a maggot himself, now, he's food for the maggots. So, you've heard of me..." Albel snarled.

"Who the heck is _he_ this time?" Fayt asked, his face showing a look of confusion and ambivalence.

"He's the best swordsman in all of Airyglyph and the captain of the Black Brigade. Better known as Albel the Wicked," Nel explained. Albel simply responded to the redheaded lady with an arrogant smirk.

"Hey, I'm gonna smack that cocky look off of your face!" Cliff was exceedingly irate.

"Bah, the maggot talks big," Albel scoffed. "You might have some potential, but you're no match for me."

"Arrogant, are we? Soon, you will be one of my conquests. Albel 'The Wicked' Nox..." Ymmyj thought to himself with a smirk forming on his face. Regardless of Albel's unsavory attitude towards the group, Ymmyj continued to look at him with a desire to completely ravage that body, that mind, that soul. For Albel to be his, and only his, to use and bend to his own will. The ultimate conquest. "Ymmyj Thyms. The one who tamed the wicked. That's gonna be me. Man, if only you had heard what those fangirls and some fanboys back in the hunting guild say about you."

"What did that show-off just say!?" Cliff's blood was almost boiling, while the smirk on Ymmyj continued to stay plastered on his features.

"I'm not interested in fighting a bunch of tired fools," Albel yawned mockingly. "Easy wins have never been my style."

 _Easy wins have never been my style_. Those words that Albel had just said cut daggers through Ymmyj's psyche more than any sharp sword could wound his flesh, and Ymmyj jerked upward involuntarily as though taken in surprise. The smug smirk on his face had been replaced by an expression of shock and awe. Ymmyj had been quite used to easy wins for almost all his life. After all, he was pretty much spoiled by Gilderoy and Irma, his adoptive parents. He was also an overachiever back in the day with little-to-no effort, finding most of his classes to be a cakewalk until that one fateful year. The only struggles he ever really had were with fitting in most social situations, with his attempts in trying to woo Lemeena, with physically defending himself from bullies, and with coming to terms with his unusual appearance. Typical struggles of a nerdy, unpopular, disenfranchised teenage boy, and clearly nothing compared to what Albel had been through. Ymmyj ran away and backed down when he had realized that he was gonna be in for quite a challenge when he failed not just one, but _two_ subjects in that same year when he called it quits. Unlike Albel, Ymmyj was one to crumble at the slightest dent to his otherwise-spotless record of hollow achievements and easy-won conquests, although his six years under Hector's tutelage and mentorship made him slightly better.

"...and unlike Vox, I take no joy in trouncing weaklings," Albel added. This had become the final blow to Ymmyj's ego. Very much unlike Albel, Ymmyj fueled his confidence through the sheer number of his weak, easy conquests, most often vulnerable women and effeminate men who have lost their lovers in the ongoing war or to starvation caused by the shortage of food in Airyglyph, especially during the harsh winters.

"Who ya callin' a weakling?" Cliff retorted. Although the blond beefcake only understood Albel to be mocking him based on his physical strength, or the effeminate man's deluded perception of the larger man's lack of it, Ymmyj felt as though Albel had read his mind and saw through his blue winter hat, fluffy, dark hair, scalp, and skull. Ymmyj felt exposed, more exposed than Albel's shapely, firm midriff was in his flashy, royal purple outfit. He felt like his weaknesses have been exposed for all to see. Perhaps, that was a wake-up call. Rather than be exposed for the wuss that he truly was, perhaps he was being exposed such that he was a fish being transferred from a small bowl to a large pond. Maybe it was time for Ymmyj to take on more challenging pursuits. There is a good reason, after all, that Albel would be considered the _ultimate_ conquest.

"Go back to your own lands," Albel uttered imperatively. "This is your only warning, fools."

"Come down here and say that!" Cliff hollered. He prepared his fists for another battle, but Nel held him back with astonishing force before he could get himself hurt. Ymmyj understood that the blond beefcake was overestimating his strength. He assumed that just like Albel, Cliff was also known back in his homeland for his remarkable strength and fighting prowess, and it was pretty much unconceivable to think of someone of his musculature as a weakling. And physical strength was something remarkable for someone from Greeton, especially in such a place where most master mechateers were thin and scrawny, relying on their machines to fight battles for them using their technical prowess instead of brawn. Either they were scrawny humans, or they were rockfolk, a race of sentient beings made of stone. And obviously, Cliff wasn't made of stone. He was still a man of flesh and blood, capable of feeling pain and of bleeding out.

"You're gonna let us slip away?" Nel questioned. "That's pretty nice for a guy like you."

"Don't get me wrong; I just can't be bothered," Albel replied. "And taking hostages isn't the way I do business."

"What do you call this, then?" Fayt asked, pointing at the Catherine wheels which once had Tynave and Farleen strapped onto them.

"Those maggots did this without my consent," Albel explained. "I knew nothing about it. Besides, your escape is his blunder; I've no obligation to clean up his mess."

"But he was your subordinate!" Fayt said in disapproval. "You have to take responsibility for his actions."

"I tire of your lectures, fool," Albel said flatly. "Now leave, or I will kill you." He then jumped off, seemingly into nowhere.

"What!? You've gotta be kidding me!" Cliff was surprised with the samurai's course of action. "He acts like he's doing us a favor!" Nel responded by telling him that she was relieved to tell him the truth about Albel's prowess when it came to swordsmanship. Besides, with all of them exhausted, starved, and deprived of rest, it would be foolish to take him on.

"Yeah; let's go back to Arias," Fayt agreed. "As Semaj said, he's sure that the folks back in Arias are dead-worried about us. I'm also sure about that." They were about to leave already, but just then, he saw Ymmyj still looking into the distance in the direction where Albel seemed to jump into. He was still silent and he stood still in that same spot from a while ago, unmoving, which was unusual for the raven-haired bounty hunter especially during a time like this.

"Semaj?" Fayt snapped the shorter man out of his train of thought. "Let's go. You gotta let Hector know that we're safe, right?"

"Oh, yeah. Right," Ymmyj replied after he involuntarily jerked upward in surprise.

* * *

"I just remembered; I'm gonna have to go somewhere else first," Ymmyj said as soon as they have reached Kirlsa. "I have... Things to discuss with Hector about this mission. Besides, it has been a while since I've visited him. I'll just catch up with you guys later, okay?"

"All right, but be careful," Nel replied.

"May Apris be with you, then," Tynave said, and Farleen nodded in agreement.

"What!? We can't let him pass through the Kirlsa-Aire Hills alone!" Cliff said just when they were about to take the first step back to Arias.

"...good point," Nel replied to Cliff after some pondering. "They have most likely assigned soldiers to patrol the area and attempt to pursue us," she then faced Ymmyj, "And now that you have helped me out and fought against Glyphian soldiers, you are now considered an enemy of this kingdom even though you are basically affiliated with a neutral faction, as Cliff and Fayt are now that they also signed up for Hector's guild. I agree with Cliff. We should stick together this time. It's not safe for you to be alone in enemy territory."

"Yeah. We'll wait for you," Fayt said. "Or, since Cliff and I are also part of the guild, maybe we should go, too."

"Really, guys, I appreciate you all being concerned about my safety, but it would be better if you guys go ahead and rest up in Arias. I might take a while here, and what I'm supposed to discuss with Sir Hector is a private matter. Besides, if they ever pursue me, you do realize that I can hold my own as well, right? After all, I saved your otherwise-sorry asses from those soldiers _twice,_ " Ymmyj bragged, putting his hands on his hips assertively.

" _Now_ you're being as much of a showoff as that Albel guy, huh," Cliff was exasperated. "I suppose that may explain why you are almost as androgynous and exhibitionistic as he is."

"You really need to get some rest," Ymmyj sighed. He resorted to using Hector's go-to line whenever someone says something that is off-course.

"Well, if you insist. But don't cry for us if they hand over _your sorry ass_ to you on a silver platter," Cliff replied.

"Do bear with him at the moment," Nel sighed. "It does seem as though he's still riled up from our close encounter with Albel."

"You're right," Ymmyj said. "That does seem to be the case. So, what now? You guys gonna go ahead? Besides, the people back there are dead worried about you guys."

"Let's go," Nel then decided. "Clair is worried about us. Besides, I've seen Semaj hold his own against soldiers, and I'm sure that he has a lot of important things to discuss with his superior. I'm sure he'll be able to make it in one piece. He's already proven himself time after time again."

"All right... All right..." Cliff grumbled with a begrudging respect for the redheaded woman. Ymmyj waved them off as they disappeared into the horizon through the Kirlsa-Aire Hills that lay beyond the eastern gate.

Ymmyj then hid behind some crates by a secluded area to the southwest of the town to shapeshift into a form that he guessed would be desirable for his _ultimate conquest_ , perhaps an exceptionally competent Black Brigade soldier whose rank wasn't that high yet. Needless to say, he wasn't really going to have a discussion with Hector over some important matters. After all, since he figured that Albel most likely had a fetish that was related to strength and power, it would impress Albel more if a low-ranking foot soldier could defeat him in a sparring session. He figured out that for all the bravado Albel showed in the battlefield, deep down he _wanted_ to be challenged and dominated in all aspects by a superior wo/man, preferably a man who looks like a woman, such as himself.

He ran back to the Kirlsa Training Facility, hoping to catch up with Albel. He knew that it would be a risky move to challenge the best swordsman in all of Airyglyph to a spar session, but being Ymmyj, he would do stupid things just to impress a girl... _or a samurai who looks like a girl_. And indeed, it was a stupid thing for a girl that started this whole adventure of his in the first place. After all, trying and failing is better than not trying at all.

And just as he had expected, the beautiful, purple-clad samurai was still there, although it seemed as though he had jumped into nowhere when he had told them to leave about an hour ago. He was in an indoor training area within the facility. By a large, arched wooden door that dominated one side of the wall was a rack with various kinds of weapons and restraints. The stone rubble walls were permanently stained with blood, and some of the stones on the worn-out floor had chipped away. There were gargoyle-formed corbels every three meters or so that connected the wall to the ceiling that was made of wooden slats. Destroyed training dummies littered the floor. From a distance, behind a pillar, Ymmyj watched Albel's sensual, luscious moves as he zigzagged the entire training area and gyrated in _that_ manner that took the younger man's breath away. He swung his katana towards the last intact training dummy which was then cleanly sliced into two. His sweating body glistened and shone against the flickering lights of the torches that dimly lit the indoor training area. Ymmyj gasped in amazement, and his presence was sensed by the master swordsman.

"Hm? What brings you here, you low-ranking fool?" Albel sneered at him as he noticed the lack of regalia on his armor. "Where did all those maggots go? All killed by the Aquarian wench?" He wiped some of the sweat off of his body.

"M'lord, t-that d-d-does seem to be the case..." Ymmyj stuttered, his eyes still wide open as he drank in the sight of Albel's well-built body that look exquisite from any angle it was viewed from, emphasized further by his provocative choice of attire.

"Well, since you're the only one left standing here, it does seem to be the case that you're quite strong. Wait- scratch that. You were _slacking off_ at Kirlsa's tavern like the stuttering, pitiful worm you really seem to be. Tsk. It's even a wonder you've lasted the full three minutes sparring against me during your rite of initiation. Besides, I think you know that taking hostages isn't the way I do business, right?"

"...Yes, m'lord," Ymmyj saluted his 'captain.'

"That maggot Shelby captured those two Aquarian wenches working for the Crimson Blade fool without my consent. Once a maggot himself, now food for maggots," Albel laughed cruelly. "Now, you mind being my training dummy? I broke the last one we have here." Albel smirked _that_ smirk which nearly melted Ymmyj inside. He pointed his sword at the dummy he just broke to rest his case.

"Not at all, m'lord," Ymmyj replied in a decadent, velvety voice as he brandished the broadsword that came with his disguise as a Black Brigade soldier. Albel advanced towards him, and he managed to parry every swift swing of the katana with the rather cumbersome weapon which was much unlike the lightweight eskrima sticks he had been accustomed to. He also managed to block every quick swipe of the claws using the full plate's armguards or the flat side of the sword. By watching Albel's sensual gyrations, Ymmyj was able to study the swordsman's moves and, therefore, interrupt all his attacks accordingly. They seemed to engage in a dance of sorts, their bodies moving in perfect sync as metal clashed against metal, until eventually, Albel had to stop and pant for breath. Ymmyj still stood proud and much-taller than he really was, his hands on his hips and the sword back in its sheath.

"Wow..." Albel tried to catch up his breath and dropped his katana on the stone floor after his numbed flesh-hand had failed him. "You're definitely something... My worthy opponent... Not a fool, not a worm, not a maggot... My prey... I need to know... What it is... That may allow me... To defeat... You... You should not... Be stronger... Than I am... Low-ranking..."

"I shall let you know, m'lord," Ymmyj smirked underneath the helm that fully covered his head.

"Someone... Of your power... Needs not... Address me... With honorifics... On second thought... You _are_ quite a bit of a fool... But the type of fool... That grows on me... You are... From this point... Captain of the Black Brigade," Albel eventually was able to catch up and regain his ability to speak straight. "I have made a wager as soon as I became captain that whoever in this brigade beats me within three minutes in a spar session would become the new captain, effective immediately."

"Seems your _hubris_ got the better of you again, hmm? Well, as new captain, my first mission for you is to spend a passionate night with me," Ymmyj said as he took off his Black Brigade helmet to reveal his face.

"You-" Albel was shocked at what he had seen. "You're that worm who was with that Aquarian wench and those two Greetonite scum! But... You seem taller. Last time I checked, the top of your head doesn't even reach that blond ape's shoulders! How could this be!?"

"Too late for that question now," Ymmyj replied sternly with the same smirk Albel often wore, and he dodged a sudden swipe of the taller man's claw aimed at his face. "You're too slow," Ymmyj brushed some dust off his armor and shrugged off Albel's futile attack. "You have willingly surrendered your title to me, and you should own up to your words. Now, strip!"

"Wha...? But you aren't in the-"

"Strip!" Ymmyj hollered as he yotally dominated Alble. The effeminate ex-captain of the Black Brigade trembled in fear like he had never done before, at least not until Duke Vox had attempted some time ago to pull something nasty on him as well back when he was still a weakling who'd been grieving over the death of his father because of his own incompetence and hubris. Shamefully, Albel lowered his head and undid the red ribbons that held his ceremonial belt and sarong up. The skirtlike, royal purple fabric and the cork-colored belt dropped down to the floor to reveal that he was wearing a purple bikini thong that was laced up on each side.

" _Everything_. Take it all off," Ymmyj sneered, drinking in the sight of the bulge between those long, shapely legs which were lovely and firm, more exquisite than those of any woman he's ever bedded. The tip of his broadsword was pointed at Albel's chest, a few millimeters away. "Although, on second thought, you may keep the thigh-high stockings and the chain-collar on." With a begrudging respect for the new captain and knowing what Ymmyj _wanted_ to do to him and _could_ now do to him, Albel took off the thong with a swift motion of his hands on the sides of his slender hips, revealing his arousal that only embarrassed him more when he saw the pleased expression on Ymmyj's face. He also pulled up the tight-fitting, midriff-baring, sleeve-forgoing shirt over his body and tossed the garment on the floor. Albel paused for a while, his head bowed in shame, which only worsened when he realized that he was directly looking down on his swelling erection that stood like a loyal brigade soldier at attention. He felt helpless and vulnerable in front of the man who had bested him, confused that his body's reactions to the situation was not in sync with his mind.

" _Everything_ except the stockings and the collar," Ymmyj repeated. He set the broadsword aside, holding up Albel's chin to force the shamed man to look straight into his piercing, sable eyes. "That includes the _claw_ , you arrogant imbecile." Hesitantly, the ex-captain took off his shoes and opera glove. He slowly took off his claw as commanded by the new one and revealed his burned stump of an arm, the one thing he hated the most about himself. His tears welled up around his eyes when he felt the sting of the stuffy air on the burnt skin, but he stopped himself from crying. The last thing he needed was to make himself look even weaker than he already was. Ymmyj forcibly took off one of the two white ribbons that tie Albel's long hair in place, and he laced it on Albel's cock that only hardened even more with Ymmyj's touches.

"I think we're gonna have a lot of fun here..." Ymmyj let out a sinister laugh as he looked around and saw various kinda of whips, chains, and shackles on the wall the same side as the large, wooden door that led to the living quarters. He didn't give a second thought about Albel's disfigured arm at all. He didn't care at all. All he cared about was that he had finally snagged Albel as one of the many notches on his bedpost. But Albel was different; he had, from this point on, become Ymmyj's boot-licking, ass-kissing, cock-sucking personal whore, and surely, he wasn't gonna be merely another one of his one-night stands.

"Holy shit... Is _that_ Terry Cotter?" Mayu, the daughter of the head chef in the barracks, was hiding behind one of the pillars as well, all this time. All this time, she was there, watching everything that had just happened. "He actually beat Albel in a spar session!?" She gasped in amazement and continued to watch them. "But didn't Albel say that he's the guy with Lady Nel... So he's Semaj Thornton!? But how? Isn't Semaj a little... _shorter_? And also, isn't Terry supposed to have more regalia on his armor?" Her eyes widened like saucers when she watched Ymmyj touching Albel's heavenly naked body in every inappropriate place, and Albel instinctively moaning in shameless, animalistic, wanton pleasure reminiscent of a dragon's roars. "What the hell are those motherfuckers doing!?" She had a terrible headache just with attempting to figure out what was going on that she had to resort to voicing out her thoughts with profanity, which was very uncharacteristic of her usually coy demeanor.

"This can't be real... This can't be..." Albel muttered under his breath as the evidence of his arousal swelled even more. Ymmyj yanked off the other ribbon that tied the rest of Albel's long hair. He tied it through one of the holes in Albel's chain-collar, using the bulky neck accessory and the ribbon as a makeshift leash. While he did that, he tweaked Albel's, soft, pink nipples that stood proudly at attention, and the slightly-taller, longer-haired man shuddered in both pleasure and terror. Ymmyj left a sudden, bruising kiss on Albel's lips, thereby officially marking him as his new captain's possession.

"Oh my Apris... I wonder what Sir Terry, or is it Sir Semaj... is gonna do to Sir Albel now," Mayu said to no one in particular as Ymmyj yanked the ribbon that was tied to the chain and led Albel to the room beyond the large, wooden door. "This is gonna be _interesting_..."

Inside, almost everything was red, and it was aptly called the Red Room. It was garishly-decorated; there was a large bed with thick, silken black sheets that had blood-red fleur de lis patterns in the middle of the room. Its headboard was upholstered with bright red leather. The mattress itself was surrounded by red, sheer curtains that served as canopies that hung over an ornately-carved, four-poster bed-frame made of the rarest ebony. Beside it, there was a rug made of stretched lum hide on the hardwood floor. An opulent, crystalline chandelier hung on the high, coffered ceiling made of mahogany. The walls had dark wainscoting, dark, intricate moldings, and equally dark panels. There were blood-red tapestries every other panel that depicted scenes of war and dragons, and on the panels without tapestries, there were racks that stored more equipment used in the roughest bondage play: ball gags in every color, all manner of restraints, various whips, paddles of different sizes, and several pairs of high-heeled leather boots. Right there, Ymmyj pushed Albel onto the bed and returned to his real form, forgoing the heavy, black armor. The dark-haired eskrima warrior began to ravage the pliant, slender body that was underneath his mercy.

 _"This can't be happening..._

 _This can't be real. I don't remember having such an awfully-decorated room in this facility..._

 _...My bedroom is purple, not red!_

 _This can't be the real chapter of this story, you fool."_

* * *

Jimmy's Notes

*Sharking, in case you don't know, is the practice of forcibly, suddenly stripping an unwitting person in public and then getting away from the victim as fast as possible before s/he fights back, or if any bystanders care enough. With that said, sharking usually happens when the victim is in an area not many people go to. This also encompasses a subgenre of porn on the more taboo spectrum of flashing, voyeurism, and public nudity, specifically ENF/ENM (embarrassed nude fe/male). An example of this is pulling down the dress of some girl while she's crossing the street, exposing at least her breasts, sometimes even her completely naked body if she is not wearing anything under the dress, which may lead one to speculate that it may sometimes be staged. A specific sub-branch of this is pantsing, which is the act of pulling down someone's trousers in public to expose them. More often than not, the sharkers have accomplices who have phone in hand, always on the ready to record the victim's humiliation and exposure, and when the clip is uploaded to a porn site, it often has the sharker's face blurred to protect his/her identity. Of course, sharking is considered a crime in many places in the world because it is a form of sexual harassment.

I was recently able to retrieve my old drafts of this story, and something like this really was supposed to happen right after the group rescues Tynave and Farleen from the facility in the original version. Only, it was quite fast-paced, Ymmyj easily convinced the party to go ahead to Arias, and the BDSM wasn't as explicit as the stuff written here, although the sex/penetration scene was actually written (badly, like Jake Tanner style, only this story is serious and is not a parody in any way), and I did type out the OOOOOHHHHS and AAAAAAAAAHHHHHSSSSSS of Albel moaning and screaming incessantly... and _Mayu eavesdropping on them._ And Ymmyj does not hesitate to ravage Albel at all, treating him as a personal whore.

The 'yotally dominated Alble' part was in the original draft as a typo I never corrected, and back there, I actually compared Ymmyj's endowment to a _hung_ arian sausage. I did cut out the sausage part from this one, though. Also, after this, Ymmyj would have forced the entire Black Brigade, or what little remained of it, to side with Aquios in the war, which, even though that is a clear violation of Hector's rules of neutrality and that no military personnel may be guild members, didn't get him kicked out of the hunting guild. Rather, Hector promoted him to a rank that was higher than the previous ceiling of triple S, making him the first Legendary Huntsman, a new rank Hector had to make to commemorate Ymmyj's achievement. Back then, he was a triple S rank hunter before I nerfed him down to the B-rank he now is. He had successfully convinced the guild leader that he only did that to help end the war as soon as possible by subjugating Albel Nox.

But upon rewriting the story after 10 years of leaving it in the back-burner, of course it would not be realistic for Ymmyj to beat Albel in a fight at this point. Ymmyj's six years of experience with eskrima sticks is nothing against the lifelong training Albel has. And also, Ymmyj used a broadsword here, which in the _Image_ canon (nope, this is not an ad for a camera brand, mind you) is a difficult weapon for Ymmyj to wield due to its heavy weight and cumbersome size. Ymmyj suddenly acted out-of-character here, quite the opposite of a guy who is quite insecure of himself that he became a shapeshifting Casanova, very much unlike the antihero whose deepest desire is to be accepted for who he is. Also, the canon/real Ymmyj thinks that rape, coercing someone to strip, and sexual harassment are abominable acts, and he would never resort to doing something like this. He may have a thing for bondage play, but only if it is consensual and within the boundaries of what is safe. Also, it would be more realistic for Ymmyj, being a guy who is willing to change for pretty much anyone, to be the uke/submissive/bottom if he is in a long-term relationship with... anyone, really, yes even Sophia or an 18-year-old Peppita (which is by the time Ymmyj turns 25), but especially _Albel._

Although, to be fair if I do push through with this plot arc instead of the real chapter 7 I have already planned out, Ymmyj would become hesitant to continue fucking Albel once Albel begs Ymmyj to whip his ass harder and to come up with better insults that would really make him feel like the dirty slut he (Albel) is meant to be. Yep, Albel is a masochist in this story, finding pleasure in punishment, because there was nothing he hated more than himself, and he thought that he would be able to repent for his sin of patricide through the punishments his dom would dish out on him. Ymmyj's insecurities about himself would resurface because he was naked in his real form, and no one has ever truly seen him before in such a state. He would also become curious about the burns on Albel's left arm and gradually fall in love with Albel as a human being and not merely as an object of his sexual desires. I would have also rewritten the previous two chapters to include Ymmyj having a threesome with Nel and Clair while in the form of a new soldier assigned to Arias, as I have originally planned ten years ago. (Of course, that would be unbelievable for Ymmyj to do, because I honestly don't think that Nel and Clair are in to that sort of thing, especially with someone they barely know.)

And instead of costume porn in _My Immortal_ , we have _actual_ porn... And _architecture_ porn, where architectural details are described in, well, detail... regardless of whether or not the architecture is plot-significant. Yep, the Red Room is a Shout Out/Take That (YMMV on which one) to _50 Shades of Grey._

...I'll just conclude that when I was 13, I thought it would be hot to see a tall, good-looking person who is _so_ arrogant get humiliated and pwned completely by a much-smaller guy/girl, which would definitely explain why Lemeena was even created in the first place. _..._ so I guess he's not too OOC after all, because of his plans for Lemeena that still apply to the actual story. And Ymmyj becoming taller was part of the mindfuckery he inflicted on Albel. When they finally did it, Ymmyj reverted back to his real form/height to really drive home the fact that Albel just got pwned by a much-smaller guy. He became a full-blown, despicable Gary Stu here, perhaps even worse than _Ronan Beelzebub,_ the 13-year-old sex maniac who forced his girlfriend to _cut her own pussy_ and gets blowjobs from the _ghostly severed head_ of a cougar/'da cooger.'

 _..._ yeah. Feel free to MST this piece of dreck. To copy-paste this story from FFN, use the reader function in your browser and copy the text from there.


	8. Chapter 7

Jimmy's Note: More Albel fanboying ahead. Viower excretion advisd. Okay, it's official: _Image_ is now an M-rated story, also as per mention of a reviewer that I should have upped the rating one chapter ago with the way I wrote Nel's almost-raped scenes. And the rating will stay for real. For one, Ymmyj is gonna act a bit creepier/pervier than usual in this chapter as more of his dark side as a hypersexual gets exposed, although not to the same degree as the joke chapter previously. One does not simply write about a sex-addicted antihero protagonist without actually having sex or fapping in-story.

This _is_ an Ymmyj/Albel fic after all, so... yeah. And just a reminder, Ymmyj and I _may_ (almost) share names (Ymmyj is loosely Jimmy backwards, and Semaj is definitely James backwards), looks (in his real form), and personal preferences (I gotta admit; I'll probably get a nosebleed if I see someone who looks a lot like Albel in real life), but he has since become a separate character from the real me with a life and personality of his own. For one, I'm actually not as much of a perv as Ymmyj is, I'm technologically more proficient than him, and I don't just go bed-hopping almost indiscriminately. Man, if I really did publish this shit way back when I would have defended Ymmyj to the ends of the Eternal Sphere's bandwidth and telling the procflaimers* (geddit) to fuck off, this really would be the _My Inner Life_ of this fandom.

There's also the reason why I chose to narrate the story in the third-person perspective instead of the first-person POV common among self-insert/Sue writers. The third person POV is an opportunity to also show what is happening to the canon characters while Ymmyj is doing some off-screen stuff, and also to narrate events happening that Ymmyj does not see, such as the scenes with Shelby from the previous chapter.

Now, I, writer of _Plankton's Eye View_ , present to you, my shoddy attempt at what could be called semi-smut. There's gonna be slash, femslash, and het, all in this chapter. Yep. This is the real Chapter 7.

* * *

 **The REAL Chapter 7**

"Another one!?" Cliff was already quite pissed off that they would have to fight yet another one of those Black Brigade scumbags again. But this was no ordinary scumbag; that's for sure. Cliff was a bit confused when he first looked at the vermillion-eyed man looking down on them. The slender figure, the long, flowing hair and the revealing outfit were much too feminine for his liking, very much reminiscent of a fine, young lady that he had briefly pined over back where he lived.

"So this is what Shelby was up to," the slender, effeminate swordsman sneered. "How pathetic. Always strutting, preening his feathers..."

"With that rather provocative getup of yours? Hmph! Well, look who's talking about strutting!" Cliff butted in, shrugging off the fleeting attraction he had felt for the androgynous katana-wielder. Ymmyj was still stunned, as immobile as a marble statue, mouth agape, examining the way the swordsman's well-defined abdominal muscles rippled on the taut, smooth, sun-kissed skin. Ymmyj's eyes wandered slightly downward to admire those long, shapely legs clad in purple stockings. His eyes scanned back up to his bared upper thighs, and in his mind, he visualized a gust of wind blowing away the slitted sarong to reveal the enigma underneath it. In a fleeting moment of insanity, he thought of casting a weak wind rune, strong enough only to blow the skirtlike garment to the right side and upwards to humiliate him in front of the group, but he discarded the idea. Ymmyj assumed that Albel is an exhibitionist, and that the androgynous, long-haired samurai would not let himself succumb to defeat by modesty. If anything, he actually liked to strut his stuff. The thought of that only aroused Ymmyj more, but common sense told him to not cast the wind rune, because he knew that Albel would not let getting sharked* by some lowly maggot faze him at all.

"That gauntlet... You're Albel Nox!" Nel confirmed Ymmyj's conclusion.

"...but for him to lose to the likes of you," Albel continued. "Huh. Once a maggot himself, now, he's food for the maggots. So, you've heard of me..." Albel snarled.

"Who the heck is _he_ this time?" Fayt asked, his face showing a look of confusion and ambivalence.

"He's the best swordsman in all of Airyglyph and the captain of the Black Brigade. Better known as Albel the Wicked," Nel explained. Albel simply responded to the redheaded lady with an arrogant smirk.

"Hey, I'm gonna smack that cocky look off of your face!" Cliff was exceedingly irate.

"Bah, the maggot talks big," Albel scoffed. "You might have some potential, but you're no match for me."

"Arrogant, are we? Soon, you will be one of my conquests. Albel 'The Wicked' Nox..." Ymmyj thought to himself with a smirk forming on his face. Regardless of Albel's unsavory attitude towards the group, Ymmyj continued to look at him with a desire to completely ravage that body, that mind, that soul. For Albel to be his, and only his, to use and bend to his own will. The ultimate conquest. "Ymmyj Thyms. The one who tamed the wicked. That's gonna be me. Man, if only you had heard what those fangirls and some fanboys back in the hunting guild say about you."

"What did that show-off just say!?" Cliff's blood was almost boiling, while the smirk on Ymmyj continued to stay plastered on his features.

"I'm not interested in fighting a bunch of tired fools," Albel yawned mockingly. "Easy wins have never been my style."

 _Easy wins have never been my style_. Those words that Albel had just said cut daggers through Ymmyj's psyche more than any sharp sword could wound his flesh, and Ymmyj jerked upward involuntarily as though taken in surprise. The smug smirk on his face had been replaced by an expression of shock and awe. Ymmyj had been quite used to easy wins for almost all his life. After all, he was pretty much spoiled by Gilderoy and Irma, his adoptive parents. He was also an overachiever back in the day with little-to-no effort, finding most of his classes to be a cakewalk until that one fateful year. The only struggles he ever really had were with fitting in most social situations, with his attempts in trying to woo Lemeena, with physically defending himself from bullies, and with coming to terms with his unusual appearance. Typical struggles of a nerdy, unpopular, disenfranchised teenage boy, and clearly nothing compared to what Albel had been through. Ymmyj ran away and backed down when he had realized that he was gonna be in for quite a challenge when he failed not just one, but _two_ subjects in that same year when he called it quits. Unlike Albel, Ymmyj was one to crumble at the slightest dent to his otherwise-spotless record of hollow achievements and easy-won conquests, although his six years under Hector's tutelage and mentorship made him slightly better.

"...and unlike Vox, I take no joy in trouncing weaklings," Albel added. This had become the final blow to Ymmyj's ego. Very much unlike Albel, Ymmyj fueled his confidence through the sheer number of his weak, easy conquests, most often vulnerable women and effeminate men who have lost their lovers in the ongoing war or to starvation caused by the shortage of food in Airyglyph, especially during the harsh winters.

"Who ya callin' a weakling?" Cliff retorted. Although the blond beefcake only understood Albel to be mocking him based on his physical strength, or the effeminate man's deluded perception of the larger man's lack of it, Ymmyj felt as though Albel had read his mind and saw through his blue winter hat, fluffy, dark hair, scalp, and skull. Ymmyj felt exposed, more exposed than Albel's shapely, firm midriff was in his flashy, royal purple outfit. He felt like his weaknesses have been exposed for all to see. Perhaps, that was a wake-up call. Rather than be exposed for the wuss that he truly was, perhaps he was being exposed such that he was a fish being transferred from a small bowl to a large pond. Maybe it was time for Ymmyj to take on more challenging pursuits. There is a good reason, after all, that Albel would be considered the _ultimate_ conquest.

"Go back to your own lands," Albel uttered imperatively. "This is your only warning, fools."

"Come down here and say that!" Cliff hollered. He prepared his fists for another battle, but Nel held him back with astonishing force before he could get himself hurt. Ymmyj understood that the blond beefcake was overestimating his strength. He assumed that just like Albel, Cliff was also known back in his homeland for his remarkable strength and fighting prowess, and it was pretty much unconceivable to think of someone of his musculature as a weakling. And physical strength was something remarkable for someone from Greeton, especially in such a place where most master mechateers were thin and scrawny, relying on their machines to fight battles for them using their technical prowess instead of brawn. Either they were scrawny humans, or they were rockfolk, a race of sentient beings made of stone. And obviously, Cliff wasn't made of stone. He was still a man of flesh and blood, capable of feeling pain and of bleeding out.

"You're gonna let us slip away?" Nel questioned. "That's pretty nice for a guy like you."

"Don't get me wrong; I just can't be bothered," Albel replied. "And taking hostages isn't the way I do business."

"What do you call this, then?" Fayt asked, pointing at the Catherine wheels which once had Tynave and Farleen strapped onto them.

"Those maggots did this without my consent," Albel explained. "I knew nothing about it. Besides, your escape is his blunder; I've no obligation to clean up his mess."

"But he was your subordinate!" Fayt said in disapproval. "You have to take responsibility for his actions."

"I tire of your lectures, fool," Albel said flatly. "Now leave, or I will kill you." He then jumped off, seemingly into nowhere.

"What!? You've gotta be kidding me!" Cliff was surprised with the samurai's course of action. "He acts like he's doing us a favor!" Nel responded by telling him that she was relieved to tell him the truth about Albel's prowess when it came to swordsmanship. Besides, with all of them exhausted, starved, and deprived of rest, it would be foolish to take him on.

"Yeah; let's go back to Arias," Fayt agreed. "As Semaj said, he's sure that the folks back in Arias are dead-worried about us. I'm also sure about that." They were about to leave already, but just then, he saw Ymmyj still looking into the distance in the direction where Albel seemed to jump into. He was still silent and he stood still in that same spot from a while ago, unmoving, which was unusual for the raven-haired bounty hunter especially during a time like this.

"Semaj?" Fayt snapped the shorter man out of his train of thought. "Let's go. You gotta let Hector know that we're safe, right?"

"Oh, yeah. Right," Ymmyj replied after he involuntarily jerked upward in surprise.

* * *

Nel and Clair immediately embraced each other as soon as the group entered the mansion in Arias. It was a tight hold, a lengthy contact of warmth on warmth. This was just what Nel needed at the moment after the ordeal she had gone through twice on this day.

"It's good to see that you're here," Clair said softly, her breath brushing against Nel's ear. "And better to feel your presence, to hold you again..."

"I'm sorry I kept you worried," Nel said, holding back the tears.

"What do you have to be sorry about? After all, it's all in good reason. You would never abandon those who work for you. But if you ever dare to take another risk like that, do think about what's at stake. The value of a life... Your life..." Clair replied, still holding on tight to Nel. She had sensed that something that happened back in the training facility had mentally and emotionally scarred her lover and best friend, her other half as a Crimson Blade and as a person, and she knew that Nel was someone who had thick skin. It wasn't easy to faze the stoic, redheaded double-dagger wielder at all. She saw an aberration in the runological forces that whirred around the redhead.

Clair let go of Nel after a few more moments. Everyone took their seats, and the meeting had formally begun after an emotional reunion of the two edges of the Crimson Blade, of two souls that have become one again after being separated for some time.

"And you three are safe, as well," Clair said with relief upon seeing Ymmyj, Fayt, and Cliff. They were exhausted, and they each had their own varying levels of injuries, but it seemed that they were still able to stay awake and pay attention to whatever was going on. But for Ymmyj, that was only at face level. He was exhausted, he was indeed injured from all the fighting he had to do, from not getting any sleep the night before. He could not pay attention at all; everything was a blurry haze around him, and sounds were slurred and slow, inaudible. After all this time, his attention was still undivided, directed at only one person, only one androgynous, purple-clad samurai.

"I want to thank the three of you," Clair continued. "Especially you, Semaj. Thank you so much. You've sacrificed sleep just to ensure Nel's safety. I fear that they wouldn't make it back safely to us had you guys not gone to help."

"Don't mention it," Fayt said.

"It was mainly small-fry," Cliff added. Ymmyj stayed silent. He was too tired to speak up at all, and his attention stayed with that one person, for that one fantasy, for one kiss, one fuck. One Albel Nox.

"Don't sell yourself short," Nel said. "And we were able to defeat the Black Brigade's second-in-command thanks to your help, Fayt and Cliff. And thanks to you, Semaj, Tynave and Farleen are safe even as we fought off those soldiers, and they were able to survive the journey back despite the many torments they could have otherwise endured for longer had we not come at all."

"Wait... You defeated _Shelby_ of the Black Brigade!?" Clair said in amazement.

"Correct," Nel replied.

"I... I can't believe it!" Clair continued to be amazed.

"Yeah, but that show-off in shining armor is still cruisin' for a bruisin'!" Cliff interrupted.

"Oh, you mean that Albel guy?" Fayt said.

"Just thinking about it makes my blood boil!" Cliff stammered. "He won't get away so easily next time I run into him! That son-of-a-"

"Albel!?" Clair interrupted. "You can't mean Albel the Wicked!?"

"Amazing, isn't it?" Nel replied. "Frankly, I'm surprised that we made it home in one piece."

"Is he really that strong?" Fayt asked.

"Indeed," Nel replied. "I'm sorry Cliff, but I'm not sure even you can beat him."

"Bah. I've heard enough of this!" Cliff said in disgust that even _Nel_ was underestimating him.

"All right. Enough talk," Clair said, noticing that tension was filling the air. And when tension filled the air during a time like this, no good things could come of it. "You must all be very tired. I'll have them prepare dinner; it won't take long."

Ymmyj had told Fayt that he would not be with them for dinner because he already had his fill of some rations from the training facility when the matron in the in-house kitchen had offered him some food while he was disguised as a knight. All he wanted at that moment was to get some sleep. And so he did, or at least he tried.

* * *

"Yes sir... I'm safe... We barely made it," Ymmyj reported to Hector as he lay down on the bed provided for him in the guest room. The sun was only starting to set, and the room was mostly dimmed by the thick curtains over the windows. The faint light from the communicator shone on his face. "Fayt and Cliff even helped Nel defeat Shelby..."

"You mean the second-in-command of the Black Brigade!?" Hector gasped.

"Yes sir," Ymmyj replied. "As for me, I just assisted Lady Nel in rescuing Tynave and Farleen. She left in the dead of night and went all the way to the Training Facility. We did pass by Kirlsa twice: going to the Training Facility, and going back here in Arias. I'm sorry we couldn't drop by. We've been too busy."

"That's all right. Also, tell Fayt and Cliff that they are now C-rank members. They have earned that promotion instantly for defeating Shelby," Hector said, still amazed at the feat. "I'm impressed. In such a short span of time, they have managed to take down a major mark which would be the golem back in the abandoned cave and now, they defeated the second-in-command of the feared Black Brigade! And they still haven't claimed the official collars and brooches that mark them as guild members. Y'know, it usually takes someone three years to earn their first promotion here in the hunting guild. Three years, as you yourself had done when you have reached your eighteenth year of age. One does not simply defeat a high-ranking officer in any of the three brigades."

"Sure. I'll tell them," Ymmyj replied.

"And y'know, I need to tell you something... Something important. I can sense something about those two, especially the blue-haired boy. I can't quite put my finger on it, but he seems to be someone with the potential to wield great power that is unheard of, even in Greeton," Hector said.

"Me too... I can see some strange auras around Fayt that I've never seen before," Ymmyj said. "And I even had this dream a few nights ago that involved me having to fight him in some weird-ass dimension. Usually, I don't care about the dreams I dream when I sleep, but... Perhaps it is something of importance. Besides, I've been having similar, recurring dreams about three shadowy figures before I met Fayt, but it was only after I met him that one of three mysterious figures get revealed to be him. Maybe Nel sees those auras, too, and she knew that she had to enlist their help, especially Fayt's, in order to end the war, in favor of Aquaria of course."

"Then all _the more_ you have to protect them, especially Fayt! By all means, Semaj!" Hector uttered urgently. "I don't care who wins this war; the war should end. All the suffering of the common folk has to end as soon as possible! After all, that is what this guild is for. To rebalance the playing field to empower the impoverished and to give the hopeless a new lease in life."

"Yes, sir," Ymmyj affirmed with a yawn.

"...You really need some rest," Hector said. "I can really see that you didn't get any sleep at all last night."

"Thank you, sir. I will," Ymmyj closed the communicator and idly lay down on the bed. He was exhausted, but he could not bring himself to fall asleep. His thoughts kept him busy, but his mind still wasn't on the strange things Hector sensed about the two engineers from Greeton, especially Fayt.

His thoughts were still on _him_. Perhaps it has already escalated to a rather unhealthy obsession this early into seeing Albel, let alone even getting to know him. His desire only intensified; he had not felt like this for any of his conquests and prospectives. Perhaps it was only Lemeena who rivaled Albel when it came to these feelings for all of his twenty-one years of existing and _really_ getting around and having intimate knowledge of at least a fourth of the _entire_ continent of Gaitt's adult population. But even then, Ymmyj had all but forgotten about Lemeena and his pursuit to have his revenge on her, one way or another. The tall, slender swordsman in provocative, aubergine attire had pushed away the voluptuous, aubergine-haired chemist out of the frame of his mind.

"C'mere, you little fool..." Ymmyj imagined Albel whispering sultrily into his ear, the deep, sensual voice sending shivers through his spine. Albel went on top of him, spreading his legs so that the taller, slender man could find his perfect place between those strong, thick, tan-lined limbs clad in black thigh-high stockings and various kinds of leg armor. He undid the three criss-crossing laces that closed the smaller man's tight-fitting, black coat like a corset, revealing his smooth, creamy skin molded firmly over well-formed muscles. Albel's flesh-hand coaxed Ymmyj's nipples to harden while the claw-hand grazed over his skin, the cold metal shallowly cutting five straight lines through sensitive flesh. Ymmyj felt a slick tongue outline the cuts on his wounded, stung skin; the blood-eyed man who owned the tongue savored the ferrous flavor of the crimson droplets that oozed through the scratches. The sucking motion of those beautiful, pale red lips left large bruises on his sensitized skin. That tongue then demanded entrance into his mouth, and the effeminate swordsman pulled him into a bruising, passionate kiss. Ymmyj had imagined the taste of Albel's tongue to be slightly bitter and ferrous.

He found his right hand wandering downwards, inching its way inside of the elastic waistband of his dark blue short shorts. After all, he had the privacy to be able to do this; he was alone in the guest room. Everyone else was downstairs eating dinner in the conference room, and they all understood that he just needed to sleep already. He felt the tumescence rising inside of his shorts. He removed the protective gear on the junction between his legs to allow the evidence of his arousal to spring free. His mind formed even more alluring images of Albel, inviting, luring, drawing him closer. That graceful, flesh-hand clad in a purple opera glove lifted up the also-purple sarong to reveal scant undergarments of the same color of the night sky just after the sun had set, barely concealing the mystery that was on the junction of those long, shapely legs that could probably snap the head off of Ymmyj's neck with little to no effort.

For a moment, Ymmyj wondered if Albel would find his real appearance to be acceptable for a bed-partner, or if he had to take on another form, perhaps the form of a voluptuous, desirable woman such as Lemeena, or perhaps a dashing, handsome man who has the makings of a valiant Glyphian knight in shining, pristine Black Brigade armor. After all, he couldn't think of anyone in his or her right mind that sees him in his real form, shortness and all, as attractive. Then again, Albel isn't exactly someone who was in his right mind; he wasn't called 'The Wicked One' for nothing, especially not for being wholly sane. Because Albel seemed to show no signs of interest in love or even just mindless sex, he never knew. No one else really knew as well, so all that would be left to do was to speculate. Even though many parts of Albel's skin were exposed, and although he had no qualms about showing his rather unsavory personality traits and the edge of his katana's blade to any fool who dared to cross him, he was still a mystery that Ymmyj couldn't comprehend at all.

The room had darkened; the stillness of the night in a quiet town came about, but he was still all alone in the room. He could still hear the faint sounds of silverware and porcelain from downstairs. He was quite unabashedly touching himself, letting out wanton moans when the visions of Albel on top of him, completely undressed and very much enraptured by his presence only intensified, became more vivid in its realism, even though they were nothing more than projections of his hyperactive imagination that prevented sleep from claiming him for that night despite his exhaustion from being awake for over one day. Beads of sweat formed on his skin even though the room was kept comfortably cool by ice runes in an orb that rested on a dais in the corner.

Ymmyj was never really one to take on challenges that he deemed to be too tough for him, but this unattainability of Albel's only aroused him even more. It aroused him, as well, to realize that Albel had so much skin on display, but no skin that could be touched, unless it was by the edge of a blade, the impact of a gauntleted fist, or the blunt end of an eskrima stick in the heat of battle. But even then, Albel only allowed those weapons that touched his skin to be wielded by someone he considered to be his equal in terms of strength.

The sable-eyed eskrima warrior came to the realization that this mission had rendered his pursuit of 'conquests' to be irrelevant. Every day, ever since he had accepted Hector's mission for him to accompany the Greetonites to Aquios, he went to the town inns exhausted beyond belief, too exhausted to even try and woo someone to one night of emotionless debauchery that fueled his confidence. But perhaps, his fantasizing of Albel, and only Albel, was a sign that he was akin to a starved incubus with a bodily system that saw promiscuous sex as the equivalent of a balanced diet for humans. Maybe he was simply starved of conquests, for it had been four days since he had his last one, just a little before the two engineers crash-landed into Airyglyph.

He stood back up after he had come undone, pulling his shorts back up to its proper place. He cleaned himself up and redid the laces on his coat. He fixed his disheveled hair and wiped the sweat off of his face. He tried to see if, perhaps, having a conquest for the night could help him get back on track. He then left the mansion, hid behind a crate of boxes, and shapeshifted to his new disguise: a tall, blond, blue-eyed man resembling the Black Brigade knight who had attempted to rape Nel back in the Kirlsa Training Facility's kitchen. In the disguise, he wore a simple, white woolen vest that exposed his toned chest, trousers the same color of parched earth, and weather-beaten, brown leather boots. Despite how tired he was, his mind wasn't fatigued enough for him to be unable to take on other forms even as the arousing, libidinous images of Albel had muddled his thought processes as of late.

He took a walk around town, looking for someone he could offer his 'comfort' to. He felt his stomach grumbling, and although he somehow regretted not having dinner with Fayt and the others, it was alright for him to make do with the scant supply of food that the town's bakery had. Just then, he found a young woman eating alone in the bakery's dining area, and she seemed lonely. After he ordered a blueberry jam sandwich and a small cup of unsweetened coffee, he went to the wrought iron chair just in front of the small, round table where a small plate with a cup of already-cold, half-finished coffee was placed.

"Hey," Ymmyj smiled at the lonely girl. "What's a lovely lady like yourself doing alone in a sad place such as this one?"

"...do I know you?" she questioned as her olive-green pair of eyes shot a look back at the blond.

"I don't think so," Ymmyj replied. "Let me introduce myself, though. My name's, uh... Keegan... Carl Keegan. What's yours?"

"Sonja," she smiled half-heartedly at the young man who had just introduced himself to her using yet another alias. "Nice to meet you, I guess..." She took another sip of her cooled coffee, her expression clearly showing displeasure from the drink's staleness. Things got slightly more awkward than the standard fare of fishing for conquests. After all, since the town's tavern had been ruined, there was no more place for strapping young men to meet like-minded women who were single and ready to mingle. Ymmyj noticed her displeasure with the coffee, and when he looked at the swirls of white, wispy, aromatic smoke still coming from his cup, he thought of the way to propel this awkward first date onwards.

"...Would you like to drink this instead?" Ymmyj offered her his still-warm cup of coffee.

"Thank you," Sonja smiled at him and put the wayward locks of auburn hair behind her ears. She took the cup of warm coffee, and when she attempted to drink it, she spat it out in disgust back into the cup. Ymmyj took that as a cue to add some sugar and creamer into the cup of coffee which was once his. He sent a smile her way as she drank the newly-sweetened coffee, and continued to get to know his conquest for tonight.

* * *

"Finally, bed," Fayt slumped on to the bed provided for him in the mansion. "But the prospect of having to develop a weapon that could potentially take away thousands of lives still doesn't sit well with me..."

"And that cocky _son-of-a-bitch_ in royally garish, exhibitionist purple is still grating on my nerves!" Cliff replied, his cussing now uninterrupted. "Wait a minute... Where's Semaj? Shouldn't he already be asleep by now? In this room? The dude didn't even have dinner with us. Shame, they served gratin. The one with potatoes and a lot of cheese on the crust." There was no reply from the blue-haired boy, but only light snores and the slight ruffling of bedsheets could be heard in the silent room.

"I see; you must be exhausted. I have a hunch that just like today, tomorrow is also gonna be another hectic one. I have a hunch that we're gonna get sidetracked again, one way or another," Cliff said to no one in particular, and soon after, sleep had claimed him as well.

* * *

"Nel..." Clair said, her voice loving and tender. The redheaded woman stayed motionless, her viridian eyes staring into the distant space. She was looking aimlessly, blankly, at the patterns of stars that formed over the clear, cloudless night that blanketed the small, riverside village.

"Nel... I can sense that there's something wrong..." Clair continued. The sorrow and concern were apparent in her voice. "I can see some broken segments in the runological forces whirring around you. ...did something happen to you back there?"

"Nothing much," Nel finally replied. "It's all part of my job. Anything that happens to me... is part of this job. Part of this mission. Part of the legacy my father passed on to me. The risks, the pain, the dangers, the twisted, sordid intentions of the enemies, the chance that I may be captured and enslaved..." Nel paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "The last part almost happened to me twice..."

"Nothing much? Your almost getting used _twice_ in one day is nothing much?" Clair questioned her lover, her best friend, her other half, with much worry laced in her words.

"But at the end of the day, no matter what happens, my duties come first," Nel replied. "And I will never abandon the people who work for me, the people who help me accomplish every mission. Tynave and Farleen..." The tears started to well up in those emerald eyes.

Nel may be stoic and frigid on the outside to the point that even _Cliff_ was scared of her. She was a skilled, cold-blooded warrior to the people who had heard of her feats of skill as a Crimson Blade, as an Agent for the Sacred Queendom of Aquaria. She was a statuesque stunner for the men and the women (who swung that way) to admire from a distance, but not to touch, not to feel, not to have for themselves by their beds for even just a last breath before a baselard pierces their throats. But inside, she was as human as everyone else, with flesh, blood, and of course, the ability to feel pain. The capacity to break down and cry. But there was only one person in all of the world who was allowed to see her be this vulnerable: her beloved, Clair Lasbard. Her other half, both as a Crimson Blade and as a person. She was certain that even as she presented a broken image of herself to the silver-haired beauty whom she had known for almost all her life, Clair knew just what Nel needed in order to be fixed, to be healed. Clair accepted her wholeheartedly, warts and all.

"If you'd like, maybe you should rest up here first. You need time to recover from the events that have transpired a while ago," Clair proposed. "You need not be concerned about them running off anymore. Seems we have earned their trust, after all. I'll take care of the mission to bring Fayt and Cliff to Aquios. Besides, Semaj is also with them. He'll also make sure that they go to Aquios, help develop the runological weapon, and return to Greeton safely when the war ends in our favor."

Clair pulled Nel into a passionate, sensual embrace. Although Nel was a bit reluctant at first to be this close to someone, even if it was Clair, she eventually reciprocated the hug.

"But duties are duties, Clair... I will never abandon this mission," Nel breathed into Clair's collarbone. The tears that dripped from her eyes drenched the smooth, fair shoulder she leaned on. "I have decided that I'll still ride with them all the way to Aquios, and we're headed to Peterny tomorrow to get some supplies. Life must go on. The world won't stop just because I need to take time to wallow in my sorrows."

"But to almost get captured by those soldiers twice and be used as an Apris-knows-what... You would _really_ need to take time off to recover from that," Clair said, planting a tender kiss on Nel's forehead.

"My decision has already been made," Nel insisted adamantly. "I'll go with them. Traumatic experience or not. Besides, all of these things are part and parcel of the job, of our lot to live and, perhaps, die by the sword."

"Well, if you insist... But you should at least get rest for tonight, though, and have a good breakfast for tomorrow," Clair replied as they drifted off to sleep as well, with Nel snuggled against Clair underneath thick, warm sheets.

* * *

"Yeah, I'm starting to wind down a bit..." Ymmyj said to Sonja as he took one last sip off of the already-cold, over-sweetened coffee that the auburn-haired lady had on the table before he walked up to her. "I've come from rather far away." Because they were the last two people still in the bakery's dining area, most of the lights have been turned off. The sensual atmosphere that the level of illumination had provided was conducive to cuddling, and right there, Ymmyj kissed her for the first time. Sonja tasted sweet, like the coffee she had drank. Ymmyj took some time to explore her mouth, and they broke the kiss off when they needed some air.

"Wait... You mean Greeton?" Sonja then asked in wide-eyed wonder. "What is it like there?"

"I don't really come from Greeton, although I have heard the rumors of the two engineers who came from that continent," Ymmyj explained. "I came from Aquios. I went all the way down here to help rebuild the tavern. Y'know, the tavern here used to be an exquisite place to taste every kind of cider there is, and meet every kind of person there is, as well." Ymmyj took a deep breath. "It's getting kinda hot in here. ...Maybe we should take this to the inn?"

"Yeah," she replied. Ymmyj and Sonja left the bakery after what seemed to be four hours' worth of a conversation that revolved around superficial pleasantries that slowly drained out what remained of his energy to socialize with people. Ymmyj had to put up yet another facade: that of a cider connoisseur from Aquios. He did not let slip any of the recent thoughts that have plagued his mind as of late, thoughts of the recent unexpected reunion with his parents, thoughts about his unexpected mission at hand, thoughts about Fayt's strange runological aura, and thoughts of the unexpected meet-up with Albel. As soon as they left, the dim lights which were all that remained to illuminate the bakery had been turned off. The inn just in front of the bakery was literally just a stone's throw away, and Ymmyj opened the inn's door for his conquest for the night.

They checked into a small balcony suite with nothing but a four-poster queen-sized bed, two nightstands on each side of the bed, and a small armoire by the foot of the bed. Two runology-powered sconces were also mounted on the wood-paneled wall behind the mahogany headboard, one on each side of the bed as well. The suite was austerely-decorated with earth tones used as the main color scheme, befitting the town's culture of simplicity. A large sliding door with glass panels set in wood dominated the side of the wall that faced the town center which had the Apris Temple and the mansion where he was supposed to stay. Simple, white curtains were at both sides of the large door to allow for much-needed privacy when unfolded.

"Man, this is ridiculous," the lute player was there, along with his two bandmates. They were just about to finish cleaning up the room that the new couple was about to stay in. "We went here to play music," he continued to grumble when he discarded a repulsive lump of Apris-knows-what, "not get our hands on disgusting stuff such as this!"

"At least we get to stay in this inn's deluxe suite for no Fol, right?" his bandmate attempted to calm him down again.

"Ugh..." He groaned in disgust as the putrid smell of the repulsive lump filled the room. "Ack!" The miffed lute player replenished the runological power emanating from the two lamps and filled the sconce receptacles with scented oils. He opened the sliding door to let the unpleasant fumes out. Ymmyj then opened the door to the suite, and the musicians were just about to add the final touches to the newly-cleaned room, which included a bouquet of fresh flowers picked from the Palmira Plains.

"Oh, we were just about to finish cleaning the room. Just a moment, please," the calmer of the three musicians apologized with a polite bow to the couple.

"Great..." the rather feisty lute player grumbled to himself. "We clean these rooms, only for weirdos to mess them up all over again. What's the point of this, anyway? _Please_ tell me these two are a bit... On the cleaner side."

As soon as the three musicians on an inn-cleaning stint left the room, Ymmyj locked the room, closed the sliding doors, and drew the curtains. Right then, Ymmyj and Sonja had done the deed, going through the usual motions of undressing and foreplay. Even as Ymmyj had thrust himself deep inside of her, something didn't sit well with him at all. His body did feel the pleasure from the act, but his mind was devoid of the joy from having another conquest, another encounter, another notch on his bedpost. Sonja did have some rather impressive bedroom skills in her arsenal, skills that would have driven almost any man over the edge of rapture. She was the woman almost any man would dream of sharing their beds with, but still. Ymmyj felt nothing, nothing but a kind of dissatisfaction for a reason that he could not really point out. Despite this, Ymmyj was the type who would never abandon a mission before it was cleared, or a conquest before his bed-partner is satisfied for the night.

When they have both attained release, Ymmyj put his clothes back on. He pulled the blanket up to the now-asleep Sonja's bare shoulders and left a soft kiss on the smooth skin, but he did not sleep next to her. He was exhausted beyond belief, his energy almost drained out, but sleep still refused to take him. He ate some blackberries which were on a wooden fruit bowl on the nightstand, and he went out to the balcony. He looked into the distance, into the same blanket of stars that Nel had looked into. By the horizon, he could see the plains that lay beyond the gate leading back to Aquarian territory. Even though he should have already sated his need for a conquest for this night, he still felt the same starvation, the same deprivation, but perhaps, if Apris and all those other blind-and-deaf, or simply apathetic, gods actually did exist, they knew. They knew what he needed to fill that emptiness, but they continued to withhold those much-needed answers from him.

Even as he had experienced the pleasures of the flesh yet again, his thoughts at the moment were still filled with Albel, and only Albel. His other supposedly more important concerns such as the mission his adoptive parents have given him to search for their son who turned out to be himself, his mission in relation to the two Greetonites, and even his original mission to have his comeuppance on Lemeena, the motivation which started it all, were pushed out of the forefront for now. For a moment of fleeting insanity, he thought of disguising himself as an initiate in the Black Brigade, or Apris-forbid, _Duke Vox_ , and pursuing the purple-clad samurai, but he discarded the idea. After all, he _really_ wasn't strong enough yet to last even a minute against Albel in a ritualistic sparring session which was part of the brigade's initiation rites. Either that, or rumors of the Dragon Brigade's captain actually being a part-Menodix shapeshifting seducer in disguise could spread throughout the kingdom and further scandalize Albel's already-tarnished, dangerous reputation. But either way could only end bloodily, with his final form being his own finely-minced body parts scattered amongst the Four Winds.

He put some Fol on one nightstand and left without a sound, without a note, thus ending their one-night stand. Even though Sonja is a desirable woman, he didn't really care that much about her. He didn't even care enough to stay for a while and accept the token she might had given him in return for that night of pleasure. He stealthily went behind the pile of empty crates again and returned to his real form. He went back to the mansion, back up to the guest room, and, taking his journal from his satchel, he sat by the room's desk. He lit up an oil lamp and opened the journal to the page with his incomplete entry from the day before.

* * *

 _"My parents..."_

These were the only two words in his journal entry from the day before.

" _My parents,_ " he continued writing, " _had moved to the small village of Arias, where Lady Zelpher, the two Greetonites, and I had stopped over for a while. But just when I was about to continue this entry which was supposed to have been from the day before, I had to stop. I was interrupted by Nel leaving on her own to rescue her subordinates. I followed her all the way to the Kirlsa Training Facility. I could not let her go out there on her own! Who knows what those soldiers could do to her!?_

 _But in the process of helping her help her subordinates, I saw him... The Wicked One. I then began to understand why he became so popular with the ladies and men who swung that way such as myself, although, to be more precise, I tend to swing both ways. Somehow, he manages to be both masculine and feminine, both feared and revered, to have both his beauty and strength to even be considered sacrosanct by some, specifically by some of my colleagues back in the hunting guild. In a few moments of fleeting insanity, of wanton shamelessness as I pleasured myself to alluring, risqu_ _é_ _images of him while Fayt and the others had dinner downstairs, I have considered him to be the ultimate conquest that I would have to have for myself._

 _With the missions I have at hand, both to search for the supposed missing son of my parents while in the guise of being Semaj, and to take the Greetonites to Aquios, it seems far-fetched that I'd be able to see him again, let alone have him work and travel alongside us. Besides, Nel was right: that merely associating with her has made me an enemy of Airyglyph, and therefore, Albel's enemy. If worse comes to worst, maybe I would have to fight him myself, a fight to the very death, a cacophonous clash of katana on eskrima stick, of claw on armguard. If treating such a gorgeous man as a foe was the only way to fulfill the mission that Hector had entrusted me with, so be it. Much like Lady Nel, I would never abandon any of my missions in the hunting guild no matter what the cost. Besides, he did treat the people I'm tasked to help in a very much unsavory manner, especially Cliff._

 _I have decided that, perhaps, I was only enthralled by his external beauty and his deep, sensual voice. Maybe I'm falling into the same trap that Lemeena had put me in long ago: the same trap of getting smitten by a physically-beautiful person with an ugly attitude. Besides, I already expect that Albel would have to be several stars away from a good grasp of reality to even give me a chance to briefly touch him in any manner, to even consider me, the real me, desirable enough._

 _I was merely infatuated with him, and infatuation was merely a sign of my libidinal 'stomach' growling, needing to be fed with another conquest. Another notch on my bedpost had to be etched. That notch had been a random wench who called herself Sonja; an auburn-haired, freckled, young lady. Nineteen years of age, she had lost her fianc_ _é_ _in the war, and at some point, she told me how much I resembled him."_

Ymmyj sketched a quick portrait of her in ink, and continued his journal entry.

 _"Underneath her seemingly-innocent exterior lay all the skills that would drive a man crazy with desire, but at the end of our brief tryst, I was left with a deep-seated dissatisfaction. As with all my conquests, I simply didn't give that much of a shit about her, but my thoughts returned to that slender swordsman dressed in regal purple, The Wicked One, Albel Nox. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why I was dissatisfied; maybe his words of taking no joy in easy things had burned me. After all, Sonja was a rather easy catch, and so were most of the bereaved women I have offered my comfort to, all of them becoming pages in this already-thick log of all my conquests. But then again, why would I let his words affect me so? Would I let words affect me again in the same way that I had let Lemeena's words of rejection change the course of my life completely? ...Apris-forbid, I may be developing the same feelings for Albel as I have felt for Lemeena. I can't let this happen!_

 _But by this point, I have realized that slowly, I'm returning to the very thing I'm running away from. Six years ago, I have run away from my home, my past, Aquios. After all, my current mission issued by Hector involved accompanying the Greetonites to the Sacred City. But after this, when I do bring them home safely to Greeton, I'd settle there as well, sever all connections with my past, except for them, perhaps, and eventually fulfill my dream to become a master mechateer. Maybe, by then, I'd completely forget about Albel, about Lemeena, and find someone who would accept me for me. The real me. Perhaps, the standards of beauty there are different._

 _I have speculated as well that maybe, my parents knew that Semaj Thornton, the androgynous B-rank hunting clan member, is Ymmyj Thyms, their son. Me. After all, they have somehow managed to find a way to figure out all about my emotional hangups and all the issues I have with my appearance. Perhaps, the mission they gave me, to look for myself, really meant that: through this journey back home, I would find myself. I think that they're just playing along with my act, as they always did back when I always pretended that I was okay in front of them. Besides, my mother has a strong sense of vision when it came to runological forces, and she probably saw the auras whirring around me even though I have undergone a drastic change in my real appearance six years since."_

* * *

Jimmy's Notes:

...I swear, there was not a single moment in this chapter when I started typing one handed. Nope. Not at all. And another long-ass chapter. Yep. Maybe having the game script and the timeline of the Star Ocean universe's history with me helps me flesh out the details for this fic in relation to Ymmyj's personal story as an OC.

Yep, I do ship CliAl too. ;) If I have to ship Albel with the nine other canon playable characters, I would ship him, in this order, from OTP to cracktastic to downright disturbing, with: Fayt [yes I am a yaoi fanboy], Cliff [of course!], Nel [I'm okay with this as well], Maria [she does seem to fangirl slightly over Albel's imprisonment scene...], Mirage [I draw the line here], Sophia [unless she is slightly aged up], Adray [eeeeeeehhhhh...], Peppita [unless it's a one-sided crush on Peppy's part as an infatuated teenager], Roger [nope, even if he is partially the same species/race as Ymmyj, although I actually found a well-written series of Albel/Roger fics that _thankfully_ don't include smut]. I specifically got onboard this ship when Cliff cradled Albel in his arms after the Biwig scene during early disc 2.

Oh, and speaking of CliAl, someone out there actually made an eroge manga/doujinshi of this pairing called _Clial Heaven_. There's also another one called _CAPE (Cliff + Albel Parallel Ero)_ , separate from the _Clial Heaven_ series. One of the scans I saw of _CAPE_ is an AU where Albel is Cliff's sexy secretary. And in _Clial Heaven 5_ , Albel dresses up as a French maid. I just found that shit being sold on eBay and scanned on LiveJournal for free. Don't even ask me how the hell I find these things. (Then again, I drew Albel dressed up as a certain goffik Mary Sue and as Adam Levine's understudy for the _Hands All Over_ photoshoot.)

...Yep. I'm downloading scans of that shit for MST purposes. (The first MST will be of _Let's Itemcreation,_ yet another doujinshi that is actually _kinda_ plausible in canon.) And I'll also use them to study Japanese while MSTing. Kinda interesting that I will use smut to learn a new language, huh? Then again, my MST and translation of _Gapang_ to English might help people who want to learn the Filipino language.

Elicoorians are a race of humans that could see runological forces, and this ability is mostly dependent on the person's genetic makeup. As such, Irma's ability to see these forces is stronger than Gilderoy's. This is most likely because the OPA of the Milky Way galaxy is in this planet, and the energy coming from the OPA had endowed the people with its power. The queen of Aquaria has the strongest ability to see these forces.

Lemeena was supposed to have auburn hair when I did my redesign of her for the original fic version of the story, but apparently, I confused aubergine with auburn when I typed the text somewhere I had no internet. But it kinda stuck, and I realized that I'd prefer Lemeena to have purple hair. Besides, purple/aubergine isn't considered an unusual natural hair color in the Eternal Sphere. Case in point: Farleen has lilac hair, and Fayt and Maria's hair color is blue. Nel's hair is a bright pinkish-red. Albel's hair seems to be naturally two-toned... Unless he actually has time to bleach his hair. Then again, he seems to have all the time in the world to tie his hair into two long-ass tails wrapped in ribbons. Funnily enough, it's _Ymmyj_ who has the most common natural coloration of all the characters, having black hair, fair skin with golden undertones, and dark brown/sable eyes. So, yep. That's pretty much why Lemeena's hair is purple instead of the reddish brown I actually intended it to be. I decided to design Sonja, Ymmyj's conquest-of-the-night for this chapter, to look like how Lemeena should have.

* _procflaimer_ is a portmanteau of sorts for 'proclaimer' and 'flamer', being that proclaimers are angel-like enemies in the game that warn people about impending doom because of their advances in science. They are programmed by Luther into the Eternal Sphere as an antivirus program that seeks to eliminate genetic aberrations/overpowered player characters such as Fayt, Maria, and Sophia. In a way, proclaimers and other executioners may actually be Sue Hunters of sorts, at least according to Luther's point of view as a video game developer. And flamers? Well, every fanfic writer knows what they are. XD


End file.
